Itself
by Super Chocolate Bear
Summary: Following a message on the psychic paper, the Doctor and Amy arrive on a planet both completely alien and worringly familiar, where prophecies about the Doctor's past and future may yet come to pass...
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

(A/N: Set between 'Cold Blood' and 'The Lodger', so spoiler warning there.)

_**Itself**_

_**Prologue**_

They had decided to use numerical designations. 1st, because it was the first to renew, and 2nd.

It was logical.

Both 1st and 2nd wished to scan the planet, to search for any forms of life. They must survive; they must be remembered. It was important.

Something was found.

2nd wanted the process over with quickly. It wanted more. It felt loneliness. Fear.

1st wanted to wait, to test. It was concerned about the pain they could bring. It felt trepidation. Caution. Fear.

As they worked, 2nd would look at 1st.

2nd didn't like being 2nd.

2nd wanted to be 1st.

It was not logical.

But it would feel good.


	2. Introductions

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter One: Introductions**_

Mas was nervous. Not that he would ever show it. Nerves were for people like his parents, people who didn't move from outside of their accepted positions, who believed in respect and duty and honour and…

Snore.

And so, here he was, deep within Noc territory, further than anyone had ever been. Well, anyone official. There were rumours whispered among his schoolmates, stories of those who had ventured inside looking for long dead loved ones and never returned, eaten alive or strung up and whipped or any number of horrific punishments. All of it by the Nocs, naturally, a people few had actually _seen_.

It was something he envied about his father. He had met them. Spoken to them. But whenever pressed on the subject, all he would say was that Mas 'didn't want to know'.

But Mas _did _want to know. Hence, he was here, lurking from tree to tree and keeping a close eye on every shadow that lurked in the wasteland around him. Which was difficult, considering _everything _was a shadow around here. He combed some fine blond hair from his eyes with his hand, letting it rest in a messy formation on top of his head.

A yelp from behind made him whirl around, suddenly alert. Ona had stumbled on something unseen, and was using a tree branch for support. She looked at him apologetically, and he just rolled his eyes and moved on, shaking his head. Why had she insisted on coming along? Ever since they were children, she was always there, tagging along, trying to join in while he and his friends threw rocks at defunct sonic generators and plotted to release a stink bomb in the headmaster's office.

She had pretty much ruined both of those efforts, stumbling and falling through everything as she did. He had pleaded with his parents to let someone else look after her for just a few hours, but she was his sister, and that meant he had to include her. Apparently, he would regret not spending time with her when he was older and they didn't live together.

His parents often made things up to make him feel guilty.

But he refused to feel guilty if anything happened to her out here. He had told her to go back, to let him go alone, but she had insisted, not even bothering to answer his simple question of 'why?'.

"It's still not too late, you know. You don't have to continue from here."

"No, it's all right," she said, as though doing him a favour. "I'm okay."

"Yes, but… you're making a lot of noise. They could find us."

"You're making more noise than me by talking."

"Yes, because you won't leave." He sighed, turning to face her. "I'm just looking out for you."

That one should do it.

Ona laughed. "You're such a liar."

With that, she moved on past him, leaving Mas hanging his head in frustration. He clenched his teeth. This was getting beyond the limit.

"Look, Ona-"

As he turned, he bumped into her back, and noticed she was staring at something ahead.

"What?"

"Uh… it's a… box."

His gaze became decidedly sarcastic as he looked at her, but then he followed her eyes and indeed found a box. A big blue one, with alien writing on the top. Alien or Noc. He walked straight to it, leaving Ona frozen behind him.

"Mas, be careful-"

He waved a frantic hand in the air, trying to get her to shut up. For once. Always chattering away in his ear, but quiet as a mouse in front of anyone else. It was maddening.

Mas reached out to the box, his hand shaking. It felt like wood, and the windows at the top were blanked out. Moving around it, he found a door on the other side.

"There's a door," he said as loudly as he dared.

Within a few seconds, Ona was beside him, looking increasingly worried. "Look, Mas, maybe we should wait for Trey. He said he would be right behind us, and if we go too far-"

"We're not going anywhere, Trey can catch up," he whispered, enraptured by the box. A real piece of Noc architecture. Completely unlike anything from home. He gripped the small metal handle and pushed.

It didn't budge.

"Locked…"

"Mas."

"It looks like a slot for some kind of key card here, but the shape is so strange…"

"Mas."

"It feels pretty flimsy, maybe I can break it open with a rock."

"Mas!" she hissed, finally grabbing his attention.

Just as he looked at her, he felt something sharp poke at his back. Slowly, he turned around, hands up. Two Nocs waited for him, grey uniforms tattered and decaying, their rifles wooden and patchy. Although the bayonets at the end seemed to be in working order, judging from the dried blood.

"Move," his captor grunted, and Mas did as he was told.

They walked for some time away from the blue box, which obviously held some value to them. A Noc weapon, maybe?

Eventually they reached a bunker, quite low down and with stairs that descended to some heavy metal doors. They opened with a horrifically loud creak as they arrived, revealing the yellow-lit, dingy corridors beyond.

"Move," he grunted again, poking him with the rifle.

They were taken downstairs to a cell block. Most seemed empty, all the doors open and revealing that the stone prison cells were bare. Only one was closed, and they were promptly shoved into the cell next to it. The door was slammed violently behind them, making Ona jump.

There wasn't much to them. A platform that jutted out of the wall that could function as a bed (only one, Mas noted), and a sizeable hole in the floor in the corner.

Mas struggled to control his breathing, and started pacing. Ona sat down on the bed and watched him, worriedly.

"Mas, take some deep breaths."

"Don't-" he bit back his instinctively harsh words and gestured a finger at her slowly, "-don't tell me what to do."

"I just don't want you to end up hyperventilating."

"Hyperventilating? _Hyperventilating?_ We're trapped in a Noc prison for interfering with some Noc weapon that looks like a blue box, and-"

"I beg your pardon, but it's not a weapon."

The muffled voice came from behind him. Mas looked to the offending brick in the wall, then to Ona.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" the voice replied. "Me talking? Yes, I heard that."

Another voice, this one female and with an odd accent, chipped in. "Would be nice if you weren't rude to the first people we've seen in days…"

"I'm not being rude, I'm just answering the question. And technically, we can't even see them, so there's not really a basis for complaint there. We're down here, by the way, hello, delighted to see you, well, hear you," the male voice said cheerfully.

It was coming from down below, near the door. A gap between bricks. Mouth dry, Mas slowly moved down to his knees, crawling along on all fours. He ignored Ona's frightened breathing as he moved closer and closer. Finally, he was peering through the gap at two faces awkwardly stacked on top of each other. Above was a girl about his age with red hair and beautiful eyes while the one below… well, he looked about the same age, but there was something off about him. His eyes, probably. They seemed… deeper than they should be.

"Hello there! I'm the Doctor," he said, his face disappearing so his hand could be shoved through again. Mas yelped and fell back, and Ona screamed. The hand withdrew as though burned.

"What, what's happening?" the man asked, sounding panicked.

"Uh…" Mas' voice was shaky, and he swallowed to try and counter it. "Nothing. You just scared us."

"What, with my hand? I admit they're a bit big, but scary… that's a new one for me. Scary hands. What do you think?" he asked, speaking to the girl in his cell.

Sounding tired, the girl spoke again. "I think it's more the fact he doesn't know who you are and you just shoved your hand in his face."

"Ah. Yeah, that would make more sense."

"Just a bit."

"Just a bit, yeah… so, anyway, where was I? Weapon, right. No, _not_ a weapon, that's what I was saying."

Mas frowned. "What?"

"The box you saw. It's mine, and definitely _not_ a weapon, thank you very much, though you can crush sheds with it quite handily. Called a TARDIS. I left it there by accident. Stepped out and straight into some spears, although not _straight _into some spears, that would have been messy, sorry, I'm rambling, it happens, what's your name?"

A little befuddled by the sudden influx of completely random information, Mas blinked before responding.

"Uh… Mas. My name's Mas."

"Lovely to meet you, I'd shake your hand but mine are quite scary, apparently."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Doctor…"

"Oh, yes, and this is Amy Pond."

She wiggled her fingers about in a wave. "Hello."

"And unless you scream like a girl, I'm thinking there's someone else in there with you? I apologise in advance if you actually _do _scream like a girl, though you could probably reach an excellent soprano."

Mas cleared his throat, and looked at Ona. Eyes bulging, she warily moved over and crouched down beside him, keeping a safe distance from the hole in the wall.

"Hello," she managed. "I'm Ona."

"_Ona_," the Doctor said languidly, seeming to enjoy pronouncing every letter. "That's a _great _name. Sort of like Amelia, which is a name I think is brilliant, much better than bland old _Amy,_" he said pointedly, shooting a look up at his companion.

Rather than respond, Amy just spoke directly to them.

"Ignore him, he's just excited to meet people who'll listen to him. Why are you two in here?"

"We were…" Mas thought for a moment before finishing the sentence. "…exploring."

Ona gave him a look, but said nothing.

The Doctor looked overjoyed. "Ah, my kind of people! I love a good exploration, I even tried to explore this cell."

Amy sighed. "He really did."

"It didn't last long," he conceded, disappointed. "But there's not much to explore outside, though, is there? From what I saw it's a bit of a wasteland."

Feeling a challenging tone in the Doctor's voice he never really got from anybody else, Mas suddenly felt very defensive.

"I'm sorry, but who are you? And what do you mean you stepped out of the box? Why were you in it in the first place?"

"I'm the Doctor, I have to step out of it in order to leave it, and it's my ship."

A hushed silence fell over them, and Mas swallowed, his mouth dry. "You mean… a ship for travelling in space?"

"Amongst other things."

"But…" he exchanged a look with Ona. "That's forbidden."

"Forbidden?" the Doctor asked, the word seeming to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. "What for?"

"Uh… we've never been told. We just know it's forbidden."

"Well that's rubbish. Who's idea was that? Space is fantastic. Don't knock it until you've tried it, and _certainly _don't _not _try because other people knock it."

Mas smiled, liking the mischief in the man's voice. "I never do as I'm told."

"Good man, I'm liking you already." His smile suddenly vanished and he looked around, like a dog who had heard something. "Oh, that's interesting, where's that coming from?" Then he was back to Mas. "Okay, sorry, where was I? Yes, right. Is that what you were doing out here? Disobeying orders?"

"Not… orders, just my father."

"Sounds like a very dull man, if you don't mind my saying, though you probably do, in which case, sorry, not used to being in one place for this long." After a quick glance up at Amy, he volunteered another question. "Incidentally, where is here?"

Amy looked down at him. "What?"

"It's a fair enough question, considering we've been here for two days," he defended, sounding rather elitist about it.

"No, but… you don't know where 'here' is?" She was sounding dangerously annoyed now. "You brought us here, how can you not know where we are?"

"Because I was following a signal rather than setting a course, now, please…" He gestured in Mas' direction, and Amy rolled her eyes in surrender.

"Now, Mas. You were saying. Where is here?"

He exchanged another look with Ona, frowning. "I… don't know."

The Doctor stared at them for a good few seconds. "What?"

"We don't know where we are."

"Great!" Amy enthused, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Mas," the Doctor said delicately, "How can you not know where you are? You're from this planet, aren't you?"

Mas stared at the Doctor. "You're not?"

"Yes, very good question, put it in your pocket and save it for later. Mas. _Where are we?"_

A frown was all he could manage, and he looked at Ona in complete confusion. She leant forward and spoke very simply, and politely.

"We're in Noc territory."

The Doctor smiled and nodded. "Right, but Noc territory where? What planet?"

"Oh," Ona said quietly. "Um… Stoarn."

For a few moments, the Doctor said nothing, his eyes thinning and taking them both in, as though judging their honesty.

"Stoarn, yes, right, thought so," he said, taking a big breath. His eyes were wide as he spoke, looking like he was concentrating on something else entirely. "I was definitely mostly entirely sure that it was Stoarn. I mean, of course, Stoarn. Good old Stoarn. I love Stoarn. Who doesn't love Stoarn? Some of my favourite shoes are from Stoarn. Do you make shoes? Of course you do, it's Stoarn."

Amy was giving him the most confused stare Mas had seen from a person, so he felt slightly better for not understanding anything the Doctor was talking about.

"But!" the Doctor announced, clapping his hands and standing up, "that's enough of that, let's get out, shall we?"

Mas glanced at Ona hopefully. "You mean you've got a way out?"

There was a hope-building pause before the Doctor spoke. "Not right now, no."

Mas' heart sank.

"But that's fine, I can improvise! Planning on the fly, just you watch, you'll be very impressed, trust me. I did have a plan before, but it was sort of dependent on the guards coming back in here, but since they haven't been back for two days, that one went in the bin. Of course, I'd have us out of here in a few seconds if they hadn't _stolen my sonic screwdriver!"_ He shouted out that last bit, as if trying to guilt the Nocs into giving it back to him.

The Doctor's face reappeared at the hole. "When they asked me what it was I told them it was a torch, but they just responded by yanking it out of my hand and punching my nose."

Amy grinned. "You should have seen the look on his face afterwards. It was _hil_arious."

"Anyway, moving on," the alien man muttered, shooting to his feet again. "There must be something we can do with two people in this cell and two in the other. Ah! Mas, do you know what a Koflon Dinglesling is?"

"Uh…" He cleared his throat. "No."

"Bibble Shot?"

"No."

"Clot Bottle?"

"Shut up, that does not exist," Amy scoffed.

"Tell that to the baby army of Stemplox Four." He was pacing now, up and down the cell. "Think, think, think, something I'm missing, something I noticed but then put away for later…"

Mas and Ona's door flew open, and Trey stood in the doorway.

Mas heard the Doctor snap is fingers. "Yes, right! I heard _him_ coming!"

The man who Mas would probably describe as his best friend (if he had any other friends to compare him to) stood in the doorway, the keys to the cell in one hand and a thin, metal cylinder in the other. His brown hair was a mess, as it usually was, with the faintest hint of dust matching the scuff marks over his face and clothes. The guard had clearly given him a fight.

"Are you all right?"

The question wasn't directed at him, Mas knew, but he answered anyway, simply because he knew Ona wouldn't.

"Fine. We haven't been here long."

Eyes still on Ona, Trey nodded. "Right. Let's go."

He made to leave and Mas was about to follow when the Doctor waved a pale hand through the gap.

"Hey, hi, hello, we'd rather you didn't leave us in here to rot!"

Trey frowned at the hand. "Who's that?"

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," he said, waving. The hand pointed back towards the wall. "This is Amy Pond, although you can't see her."

"Hullo," she said, surprisingly cheerful for someone who had been locked up for two days. Maybe it was the prospect of getting out.

Looking to Mas and Ona, Trey spoke quietly. "Do you know them?"

"Only met them today, in here," Mas said.

"But…" Ona's voice barely registered, but it was enough for Trey to look at her. Encouraged by his attention, Ona spoke again. "They were going to help us escape."

"That's what they _said_," Mas reminded her cautiously.

"So you don't trust them," Trey said, not really phrasing it like a question.

"How can we? We've only known them for a few minutes."

Unintelligible shouting came from the entrance to the bunker, followed by some loud metal clanking. Trey looked down the corridor where the sound had come from, and back to them.

"We have to leave, right now."

"I can help."

They all looked down to the hand that now hung limply through the gap.

Mas frowned. "What?"

The hand perked up with the Doctor's voice. "Oh, so you're listening to me now, are you?"

"Doctor," Amy said, sounding a little more frantic than before. "_Please _don't insult the nice people about to let us out of our cell."

Either ignoring her or moving on, the Doctor's hand gestured madly, pointing and waving around with every description. "I can help you escape in my ship, but you _have _to let us out of here."

Unconvinced, Mas tilted his head to the side, making his shrug bigger than it needed to be. "And we can trust you, because…?"

"Because there's a _lot _of Noc guards coming right now, and I'm the best bet you've got."

Mas looked to Ona, then to Trey, who just shrugged.

After a moment's thought, Mas snatched the keys from Trey, and unlocked the Doctor's cell.

He was skinnier than Mas imagined, his hands and feet seeming out of proportion with the rest of him. Amy was… distracting in that way pretty girls were when they were aware of their looks.

"There's a good man," the Doctor said, sounding satisfied as he rubbed his hands together and looked them over, finally settling on Trey.

"Ah, you're the one I heard, eh? See, I said you'd all be impressed. Now, let's get to the TARDIS shall we? First thing's first, though, that's my sonic screwdriver," he said, pointing to the cylinder in Trey's hand.

Mas had thought it was a pipe when Trey had been stood in the doorway, but it was indeed a sonic screwdriver, although completely unlike any Mas had seen back home.

The Doctor took in the unconscious guard in the corridor, then looked back to Trey, his head whipping back and forth and shaking his abundant hair everywhere.

"Did you… _hit _them with it?"

Trey shrugged.

Thinning his eyes, the Doctor snatched the tool away from Trey and waved it about in his face like a scolding teacher.

"You don't _hit _people with it, it's a sonic screwdriver." He looked it up and down, switching it on and off a few times. "What did the nasty man do to you…?"

"Uh, Doctor," Amy said, sounding tense as she looked over Mas' shoulder. Turning, he saw several guards gathered at the end of the corridor. Looking behind the Doctor and Amy, Mas saw more guards there as well.

"Can we use this to get to your ship?" Trey asked urgently, showing a transmat disc to the Doctor.

He looked it over briefly before throwing it over his shoulder. "Nope, too short range. Actually, no, wait, shut up, let me look at it first."

The Doctor whirled on his heel and scooped up the disc again, swirling the sonic screwdriver around it, tongue sticking out of his closed mouth. He sprang to his feet, throwing the transmat up in the air and catching it again before facing them with it.

"There! Everybody grab on. Now, these modifications are a bit slapdash, so this might get bumpy."

Mas didn't like the sound of that. "'Slapdash'? 'Bumpy'?"

Eyes bulging, the Doctor nodded to the disc in his outstretched hand. "Yes, because this is the perfect time for a debate. Don't worry, it's just like playing 'Bop It'. With a little bit of 'Twister'. And teleporting. Just grab on, please."

Everyone did as they were told, Mas included. Satisfied, the Doctor did something else with the sonic screwdriver, and the disc began to glow.

"Doctor, this is going to work, yeah?" Amy asked, almost as an afterthought.

"Yeah, definitely," he replied securely, eyes on the device.

The glow spread to all of them, and Mas prepared for the teleport jump.

"…mostly definitely. No-one is too attached to their extraneous limbs, are they?"

Everybody glared at the Doctor, who looked promptly chastened.

"Black humour not appreciated. Noted."

The teleport took hold, light consuming them.

* * *

(A/N: Okay, so this is a sequel/prequel to another story, 'Dominoes'. I'm hoping it works well enough as both, so you can easily read one without the other if you were so inclined. I'd rather you read it, though. I quite like it. J

Anyway, reviews please!)


	3. History

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Two: History**_

The bright light of the teleport gave way to an entirely different bright light as the Doctor was thrown head over heels until he lay on his back. He opened his eyes and looked up to see a beautiful clear day, the sun beating down on him in a manner not altogether unpleasant.

He frowned. Where they had just been, it had been dark, overcast and cloudy. With a mild chance of rain, if he could taste weather patterns in the air as well as he could with his last face. The Doctor checked his watch. Still the same. So how was it suddenly daytime?

He sprang up into a sitting position, taking in his surroundings. Dazzling, tall white buildings ran down the street on either side of him, windows thin and streamlined. Everything was thin and streamlined. The vehicles were sleek and looked pollutant free, the clothes were minimalist and there was barely a noise coming from any of them. Not that clothes made a lot of noise anyway.

Although the people staring and pointing at him… they were making a fair amount of noise.

The Doctor leapt to his feet, and some of them cowered back. Eyes studying them, he called over his shoulder.

"Amy? You all right?"

"Yep," she muttered shakily, "fine."

"How about everyone else? Are we all good?"

They all mumbled their affirmations in some way or another, and the Doctor was satisfied.

"Good. Now, next order of business, does anyone know where we are?"

"Home," Mas said, stepping forward. "But that's impossible, how did that short range transmat get us here?"

"That was me," the Doctor said. "Linked it to the TARDIS systems to give it an extra boost. Sent us through time as well as space. Same instant, different place. Although I _was _aiming for the TARDIS, must have overshot it a bit. Burnt out the transmat device, too," he noted, looking at the smoking pile of nothing that lay on the floor.

"Through _time?" _Mas asked incredulously, an attitude the Doctor never really appreciated when it came to time travel.

"Yeah, you'll have absorbed some temporal radiation from that little hop. Harmless, though. Just don't look at each other with 3D glasses, it'll freak you out. Or is that just with Void-stuff, I forget…"

As most people new to the concept did, Mas scrunched up his face as he tried to bend his mind around time travel.

Amy, meanwhile, completely accustomed and almost blasé about the whole thing, was noticing other things as she walked up alongside him.

"Doctor, they seem pretty scared of us."

"Yeah… can you blame them, though? I mean, these hands… oof."

She ignored the comment and looked over her shoulder to Ona and Trey. "Why are they so scared of us?"

There was a pause before Ona finally spoke. "You look… different."

"That's it? We look different?"

"She means 'alien'," the Doctor clarified, hands in pockets as he nodded at the crowd gathering in front of them. "They're scared of us because we look alien."

Amy leaned in. "But we _are_, aren't we?"

"Well, yes, but we might not want to announce that to the crowd, thank you," he murmured before greeting the throng of people with a big smile and a cheery wave.

"We should take you to the Council Chambers," Ona said, abruptly appearing between them.

His voice took on a bored drone as he spoke. "Really, Council Chambers? Sounds riveting. But I'm more interested in your planet, its history. Have you got a library, museum, anything like that?"

"No."

"No?" he said, perhaps a little too loudly.

"Well, yes, but- look, you should come and tell them who you are, that you helped us escape."

The Doctor modestly lowered his head, adjusting his bowtie. "Nah, showing off isn't really my thing."

Amy sounded like she had something caught in her throat, the way she was clearing it. After fixing her with a pointed stare, the Doctor looked back to Ona.

"…and besides, we need to get back to Noc territory as soon as we can."

"Why? For your ship?"

For a brief moment the Doctor considered telling them about the signal he received on the psychic paper in a language he could read because of the translation circuit but still didn't recognise… but then he thought better of it. They were having trouble dealing with the fact he could travel through space and time, he didn't need to add psychic signals and translation circuits into the mix.

"Yeah, my ship, exactly. Can't leave my TARDIS all alone. Poor thing, she'll get lonely."

"Doctor…" Amy's gentle intonation got his attention. She nodded to the crowd before continuing. "They're pretty scared of us."

"Yeah."

"Because we're aliens."

"Yes again, very clever."

She thumped his arm. "And they're suspicious of us."

"Is this going somewhere?"

She gave him a tired look and shook her head. "I'm just _saying_… maybe looking like you've got something to hide isn't the best idea? Especially if you want their help with the _thing_."

"The thing."

"The _thing _that you got on the _thing thing. _Yeah?"

This wasn't fair. He was the Doctor. The teacher, the professor, the educator… why was this girl nearly nine hundred years his junior teaching _him _lessons? A pained look on his face, he looked first at Amy, then at the crowd, their new friends, then back to Amy.

"Oh, all right," he sighed, returning his attention Ona. "Yes, Council Chambers, sounds fantastic, just my cup of tea. Is there tea? There better be, I'll find it difficult to talk to Council Chamber people without a nice hot beverage. And biscuits! Some Jammy Dodgers would be great, and thank you for helping us get out, by the way," he said, stretching his hand out to their erstwhile dusty rescuer.

"I'm the Doctor, and this is Amy."

The young man looked reluctant, but said nothing. Mas was in a world of his own, still thinking about time travel and spaceships. He slowly took the Doctor's hand and shook it while Amy waved her greeting.

"Trey," he said simply, before releasing the Doctor's hand in a little bit of a hurry.

A bit of tension there. Anxiety, maybe? The Doctor just smiled and nodded before looking to Ona.

"Oh, oh!" Amy said excitedly, grabbing his arm. "Can I say it?"

"No, it's my turn."

She scowled. "You said it to those grey things with the ears that looked like chairs, remember?"

"Yes, but they had chairs for ears, so technically they didn't hear it, and so technically it's still my turn."

A indignant gasp escaped her, and she hit his arm. "You can't get me on a technicality, that's not fair!"

"Them's the rules, Pond. It's _my turn._ I never get to say it."

"Shut up!" she hissed, "How can you have never said it? You told me you're nine hundred and seven!"

"Yes, and it's a travesty that I've said this the few times that I have, so!" he announced, hands out like he was making a big display. "Take us to your leader!"

Though she looked a little confused as to what all the fuss was about, Ona led the way with Trey. With a pleased smile, the Doctor started walking, Amy sulking alongside while Mas trailed behind them.

The Doctor pointed up at one of the vehicles flying overhead, speaking to Amy. "See that? Sonic technology. In fact…"

He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and did a sweeping scan, opening the device up and checking the readings before diving it back into his pocket again.

"…everything here is sonic powered."

"What? Instead of electricity?" Amy asked, watching a monorail train shoot along in the distance, swerving between buildings like a snake on fast-forward.

"No. Yes. Well, sort of. There's an initial charge that's needed before everything can start, but otherwise-"

The ground suddenly shook violently, and Amy would have toppled back if not for the Doctor's quick hand grabbing her wrist. The others, meanwhile, seemed more than prepared for the tremor.

Amy looked to the others worriedly. "Was that an earthquake?"

"They're the tremors," Mas said, and both the Doctor and Amy looked to him.

"Ooo, the tremors," he said spookily, waving his hands about with a smile. "Sounds great." He dropped to his hands and knees, pressing his ear to the floor. "What causes them? A fault line?"

"Uh…" Mas looked to the others, then to the Doctor. "I don't know."

"And you never ask, I suppose," the Doctor said rather than asked, trying his best not to sound judgemental but failing miserably. They must have missed his tone, distracted by his crawling around on all fours on the floor. "Oh, rumbling. Or shaking, moving, trundling? Sort of. Running out of adjectives. Wish I had a cup or a glass. Or a trumpet, that would help. Got a trumpet handy, Amy?"

She snapped her fingers. "Left it in my other jacket."

"Hmm, shame. Tell me, how far away is the Noc territory from here, Mas?"

Mas seemed confounded again, but Trey came to his rescue.

"About twenty kilometres."

Amy frowned and smiled at the same time. "You use kilometres?"

"The metric system!" the Doctor shouted, jumping to his feet. "It's spreading, the English heritage is disappearing, and so on. But twenty kilometres… surely we should have felt an earthquake during our two day stay in hotel prison."

"So not an earthquake?" Amy asked.

"Not an earthquake," he confirmed, pointing a finger in her direction. "Although what they _actually _are, I have no idea, but I'm definitely curious now. Not to mention the difference in the weather."

"What's wrong with the weather?"

"Well, over here it's sunny not cloudy, and over there it's cloudy and not sunny, and that's putting it simply, but that's for later! Now we have _Council Chambers _to go to," he said, putting on his best deep, important voice to emphasise this wonderful place.

A little unsure of whether they should continue on, Ona and Trey eventually started to move off, and Mas moved up next to the Doctor.

"So you're really an alien."

"Well, from my point of view, you're the alien-"

Amy cleared her throat.

"-but yes."

She waved. "Me too, I suppose."

"But you look like Diurs."

"Yeah, meaning to ask about that. Is that your species or your faction?" the Doctor asked, keeping his eyes ahead.

Mas frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The Nocs look the same as the Diurs. I assume you're the same species in separate factions."

Looking almost offended by the notion, Mas shook his head. "No."

"No? Really? But you're from the same planet, aren't you?"

"Yes, but we've got nothing to do with them. We're nothing like them."

Trying his best to hide his curiosity at the sudden change in attitude, the Doctor nodded. "No… no, of course not, what was I thinking? Sorry, we're new here."

"It's… okay. I just… I've never come across someone talking about these things so brazenly before."

"Is it a problem?" Amy asked, peering around the Doctor.

"No, no, just… don't go thinking we've got anything to do with the Nocs. We don't."

"Noted," the Doctor said quickly, trying to concentrate on walking instead of how irritated he was getting at the ignorance of some species.

"So what species are you two? Are you from the same planet?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the Doctor laughed, then removed the smug look from his face when he saw Amy's possibly fatal expression. "I'm a Time Lord."

"Never heard of them."

"Yeah, we're a very rare breed these days." He frowned. "Wait, hang on, shut up. So you _have _heard of other species?"

"Well… yes."

"But you said that space travel was forbidden."

"It is. But others have come here before, looking to trade with us or colonise on empty land. But they were never permitted past the energy sphere."

"Energy sphere?"

Mas nodded. "It protects us from outside invasion. I don't know how you got through, actually; your ship should have been blown to pieces getting in."

"Yes, well, it's one of a kind," he said with no small element of pride in his voice. "That must have been what threw off the landing, though." He looked at Amy. "See, I told you I was on target. It wasn't my fault this time."

She rolled her eyes. "First time for everything…"

Mas looked confused, and the Doctor smiled. "She's always criticising my driving. Twelve years instead of five minutes, two years instead of a few seconds… you make two tiny mistakes, and they never let you live it down…"

"You were late for Churchill, too-"

"Ah, _that _was a… calculated error. Anyway, shut up, doesn't matter, we got through this time, just missed the signal by a mile or two."

Rather than continue this line of conversation, Mas moved on to Amy. "And you? Where are you from?"

"I'm from Earth," she said.

Everyone stopped walking except for the Doctor and Amy.

"So…" Mas glanced at Trey and Ona. "You're human?"

Becoming steadily more uneasy, Amy let out a very unsure, "Yeah…"

Ona was looking between Mas and Trey frantically. "We can't take her to the Council Chambers."

"What?" Amy asked, becoming less frightened and more annoyed. "Why?"

"Look," Mas said quickly, "it's just… the law, is all. Humans are not permitted on this planet."

"And why's that?" the Doctor asked carefully, already knowing the answer.

"We don't know, it's-"

"Forbidden, yes, I guessed," the Doctor all but sneered, doing a pathetic job of hiding his distaste. "Just like space travel. And what do you do? You go along with it. Never question it, never challenge it, you just do as you're told. Blimey, you're worse than her lot," he said, shooting a nod in Amy's direction.

"Uh! I'm stood right here."

He ignored her and addressed the other three. "I'm the Doctor, and this stops now. Amy Pond is with me. If you're taking me to the Council Chambers to talk to your leaders, she comes too."

Silence reigned for a few moments as the three friends looked to each other for some form of support.

Amy leaned over and whispered, "Not many people I know who can trail a huge insult and a huge compliment together."

"It's a gift," he muttered, before quickly challenging, "So! What do you say?"

Unexpectedly, it was Trey who spoke up first. "If she enters the Council Chambers, she'll be killed."

The Doctor clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "So no Council Chambers for Pond, then. Any objections?"

"Nope," Amy replied quickly. "Never wanted to see the Council Chambers, anyway. Boring Council Chambers. Council Chambers, snore."

* * *

As it turned out, the Council Chambers _were _pretty boring, at least to look at from the outside. A bland, tall skyscraper that could have been any building in any city on Earth if not for the thin, glossy blue windows and the odd glass lifts going up and down on each corner of the building.

The only thing that made it interesting to Amy was the fact that she wasn't permitted inside and the Doctor was. Apparently Time Lord DNA could pass through the scanners without incident, but human DNA would set off all manner of alarms and security responses.

What the hell had humans done to these people? She had seen what humans were capable of on the Starship UK, but that was hundreds of years into her future. And what year was this, anyway? Usually when they arrived somewhere new the Doctor would be spouting all kinds of information and trivia, daring her to keep up. But this time, he was oddly silent, just muttering away to himself about losing and gaining the signal. He may have said something about bananas, but she couldn't be sure.

Luckily, Mas, being an agent of mischief that he was, knew how to gain access to the security channel of the surveillance cameras in the chambers. Although technically, according to the Doctor, they weren't cameras but some kind of plasma based orb… thing.

Whatever, they were cameras, and she could watch what happened through them. The monitor was hidden in the wall, tucked away at the bottom for whatever reason. Mas was crouched in front of it, and Amy had to bend forward to get a good look at it, hands resting on her knees. Trey was keeping lookout, though she suspected he was having a sneaky look now and again. At the monitor, not at her.

She shook the thoughts from her head as she watched the Doctor come to a podium placed at the bottom of a round chamber. Ona had been the one to escort the Doctor to the chambers. She was 'the good one', in Mas' words. Various politicians and dignitaries sat in the semi-circle in front of him, the raised seating extending further back than the angle of the camera could see.

"_A Time Lord?"_

"_Yes, but I'd rather you just call me the Doctor."_

Ignoring the comment, the same politician continued on. _"What planet are you from?"_

"_It doesn't matter," _someone else interjected, making Mas groan.

Amy looked at him curiously.

"My father," he sighed.

"_You saved my children, and for that, you have my thanks."_

"_It was nothing, they're lovely kids. But I'm not here for praise, I'm just here to tell you that… well, that I'm here, really, so you don't go panicking and thinking I'm invading or anything like that."_

"_Of course, the perfect cover for an invasion would be a peace offering beforehand," _someone else said from up above. He sounded old and severe.

And speaking of which, the Doctor's brow darkened, which was quite an accomplishment for him.

"_I only came here because your daughter insisted," _he said, first speaking to Mas' father and then to the entire chamber._ "I didn't have to, and certainly didn't want to. Trust me, as soon as I get back to my ship I'll be happy to get out of your precious little lives and never return."_

"_A ship which is conveniently in Noc Territory."_

The Doctor glowered even more, and seemed ready to say something everyone in the room would regret when someone new spoke up. Someone new and seemingly powerful, because everyone listened. Their leader, it would seem.

"_Doctor, because of your assistance in saving the Kin clan's children, we are willing to grant you some leniency. We will allow you passage through our city provided your only destination is your ship, and that you leave as soon as possible."_

"Lovely," Amy muttered, forgetting about Mas' presence temporarily.

He didn't seem to disagree, however. "Something new comes along for the first time in years, and they want it to leave. Where's the fun in that?"

Something about that last comment reminded her of the Doctor, and she couldn't help but smile.

The Doctor, meanwhile, just had this pinched smile on his face, like he was holding something in._ "Thank you. Very gracious. I'll be off, then."_

"_Directly to your ship, Doctor."_

"_Yes, right. Directly. Of course, I'll be needing a guide through the Noc territory to get back to my ship. How about Ona, Mas and Trey? They seem to know the terrain well enough-"_

"_Mas and Ona are going nowhere," _Mas' father said sharply, and Ona shrank visibly next to the Doctor.

"_But Trey?"_

"_What you do with him is none of my concern."_

Amy frowned and looked back at Trey, who had a neutral expression on his face, betraying nothing.

"Issues with your dad?"

"He's not my father," Trey said simply, without a hint of malice that would indicate any father/son issues. "I'm a friend of the family."

"_My_ friend," Mas clarified. "Though it's not me he's really interested in."

Looking to Trey, and then to the image of Ona on the screen, Amy allowed herself a sly smile. "Ah, you've got a thing for Ona?"

Trey looked like he wanted to smack Mas around the head, whose smirk probably wasn't helping matters. Before Amy could question any further (though she wasn't sure if she was actually _going _to), the Doctor spoke up again, voice fizzling with static through the transmission. She couldn't really ask for better quality, they _were _hacking into it, after all.

"_Right then, Trey it is." _The Doctor smiled in a way that probably wouldn't result in much good, and said_ "While I'm here, I don't suppose you'd be open to answering some questions about your planet's history?"_

There was a stony silence.

"_Right, never mind. I'll just…"_ He pointed over his shoulder. _"Yes."_

The Doctor walked out as leisurely as his awkward gait could manage, hands waving about by his sides as he went. After a few nervous glances back up to where Amy assumed her father was, Ona followed, moving quickly to catch up.

It didn't take the Doctor long to get to them; they were only a few blocks down in a university campus, or something like that. They had been forced to switch off the DNA scanners at the entrance for a brief second to allow Amy to sneak inside.

"Well, they were friendly," Amy said as the Doctor approached.

He looked at the monitor they had been using to watch the meeting as he spoke.

"Yes, odd behaviour…"

"Odd?"

"People with this level of technology… usually philosophy advances along with science. And when it doesn't…"

"When it doesn't… what?"

"People have bad days."

Amy remembered the last time the Doctor had talked about having a bad day.

"_A lot of bad stuff happened. And I'd love to forget it all."_

The Time Lord blinked and shook his head. "Right, anyway. Those tremors," he announced, whirling on his heel and tottering a little as he faced Ona, pointing a finger in her face. "How about those tremors, eh?"

"But…" Ona looked frightened. "You said you were going back to your ship."

"Yeah. _After _I've looked into the tremors. Earthquakes that aren't earthquakes at all, it's all a bit interesting, isn't it? And quite frankly, something about them is giving me the willies. I never leave when I've got the willies, willies should never be ignored, Ona, remember that."

He paused and exchanged a significant look with Amy, who was trying not to laugh _too _much.

"And I could have phrased that much better," he added.

"But you _promised_," Ona insisted, increasingly stressed, "As soon as possible."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, looking disappointed. "_Yes_, as soon as I possibly can _after_ I've looked into the tremors. I'm still keeping my word, and I'll be gone soon enough. Then you can all get back to your blanketed, closeted existence where nothing exciting or remotely interesting ever happens, and you never question a thing, never ever."

Not waiting for her response, the Doctor looked back to Amy, but was in fact addressing Trey, who was stood behind her.

"Trey, my good man. Would you be so kind to escort Amy to Noc territory and to my TARDIS? You saw it, didn't you? Blue box, alien writing?"

The young man frowned. "Now? I thought you were looking into the tremors."

"I am. Amy is going back to the TARDIS."

Feeling like she had missed a huge discussion about her staying with the Doctor, Amy blinked. "Sorry, I'm what?"

Smiling but with a look in his eyes like he was expecting something big and loud quite soon, the Doctor took a breath. "Look, I'm curious about the Nocs, but I'm also curious about the tremors. Makes more sense to look at the tremors first because they're here and then go to Noc territory, right?"

"And I sit in the TARDIS doing, what? Watching telly?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the Doctor muttered, then cleared his throat. "The telly doesn't work, aerial's been broken for ages. A temp from Chiswick kicked it over in a strop."

"Doctor…"

"Besides, I didn't say go _straight _to the TARDIS, did I?" He looked into her eyes expectantly, and it took just a few seconds for his meaning to reach Amy's brain.

"Oh…" She smirked. "Gotcha."

He returned the smile, pointing a finger at her. "Ah-ha, gotcha. And even if I did, it's not like you'd listen anyway…"

In a movement that far too accurately imitated the Doctor, she whirled around on the spot and smiled at Trey.

"So then. Noc territory, eh? I hear it's nice this time of year."

Looking very confused, Trey's face went a little red when Amy looped an arm into his and started to lead him out of the room. Mas was alongside them instantly.

"I'm coming too."

Ona looked like she might burst. "You can't, father said-"

"I'm going, Ona. You can tell father whatever you want. Come, or don't, just decide."

She looked to everyone else in the room for some kind of support. Amy tried her best to look inviting, and the Doctor… his expression was unreadable as always, somewhere between a frown and a vague smile.

"I can't," Ona said simply, looking down. "I've hurt them enough."

With a sneer that was nowhere near as subtle as it should have been, Mas shook his head and walked to the doorway.

"Mas, wait." Ona ran over to him, rummaging around in a pocket of her dress and bringing out a disc similar to the one they had used to escape the prison.

Amy tried to get a better look. "What is that?"

"A tracking beacon," the Doctor said from behind her. "Trey, you've got the tracker, right?"

Blinking himself out of a reverie, Trey nodded and brought out the relevant device, thin and white and only a little bit bigger than an iPod. He handed it to Ona, who held it like a holy object in her hands.

"Wonderful," the Doctor said, waving them out like a fussing mother. "Now, off you go, children, have fun. Ona and I will see you after we've looked into the tremors."

Ona looked like she had been bitten. "What?"

"Well, you were my escort to the Council Chambers, may as well extend those duties to the rest of the city. You can't very well let me wander off by myself, just imagine all the trouble I could cause." After a quick waggling of the eyebrows, he started talking to Amy before Ona could respond. "All right, be careful, don't talk to strangers, and if there are big signs saying no trespassing…"

"…ignore them," she finished.

He grinned. "Exactly."

* * *

(A/N: Had a bit of an Eleventh Doctor marathon recently, so hopefully he sounds right here. Though the Doctor is the Doctor most of the time, he just changes tawdry quirks.

So yeah, anyway, reviews please!)


	4. Exploration

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Three: Exploration**_

The ground became steadily more uneven and dusty as they left the city limits. The human girl was looking at the ground unsurely, as though not understanding its very existence. They were walking with a human girl. This was ridiculous, dangerous. And, no doubt to Mas, very exciting.

Amy wobbled a bit before getting some secure footing. "Are there no roads here then?"

Mas shrugged. "Don't need roads here. Nobody ever leaves the city."

Amy stepped over a particularly large rock before addressing Mas again. "What, ever? Or just to go to Noc territory?"

"No, I mean… in general. Nobody leaves," Mas replied, looking confused. But he quickly replaced it with a smirk. "Except for me, of course."

Trey resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, but Amy's bemused reaction said it all for him, much to his amusement.

"Oh. Right."

He had to admit, he did not enjoy this inquisitive nature that she and the Doctor possessed. Asking so many questions, it made him… uncomfortable, in a way he couldn't really understand. As a child, he had been discouraged from asking too many questions, even in school. Everyone was, really. Even so, he had felt especially singled out and warned about this.

His father, particularly, had told him not to be too inquisitive around visitors to the farm, especially Kin Shriner, the head of the Kin clan. Much of his father's business depended on keeping good relations with the people in the city, and offending Shriner or drawing too much attention to himself could jeopardise that.

And considering that would have meant less visits from Kin Ona… well, Trey did as he was told. Not that such information was exactly public. The only person he had entrusted that information to was one Kin Mas, and he hadn't exactly been subtle in his hints about the subject. Sometimes Trey wondered if Ona knew. She seemed to, at times, but at others appeared completely oblivious.

He wished he still had parents to ask for advice.

Amy had stopped on a particularly large rock, and Trey paused to look over at her. He called out to Mas, who was leading the way across the sandy clearing. At first irritated at him for making him stop, Mas' expression changed to concern when he saw Amy staring out at the horizon.

"What? What is it?"

"Is it getting darker?" she asked, looking back at the city and then ahead of them again. "No, it's daylight behind us, but… can you see that? The sky getting darker up ahead?"

"Well," Mas scoffed, laughing at Amy's clueless nature, "yes. That's the Noc territory."

"That is?" she asked, jabbing a finger at the darkened sky in the distance. "So the sky is darker in Noc territory? But it's light here. How does that work?"

Looking a little frustrated, Mas shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you should ask your Doctor."

"Well, I'll have to, won't I? You two are useless," she said loudly, giving them both an exaggerated glare. "Still, that is _really _weird to look at…"

Her fascinated gaze remained on the dark sky for a few more moments before she blinked and came back to reality, hopping off the rock and walking over to Mas.

"Come on, then. The _dark side_ awaits," she said dramatically, sauntering off ahead of them.

Trey walked over to Mas. "She's strange."

"Yeah," he replied, eyes firmly on the girl before he wandered after her.

Trey sighed. Might as well make it official. Mas was in love.

* * *

Ona had never seen someone's eyes light up so exuberantly at the sight of a library before, especially not someone so young. Well, young _looking_. Something about his attitude indicated that he wasn't exactly an average young man. The eyes, too. The eyes were wrong for someone who looked just a few years older than her.

"It's just a library."

"_Just a library?"_ the Doctor admonished, jogging up the stairs speedily. "There's no such thing as 'just a library', Ona. Libraries are all about history. I mean, yes, factual history and all that, but you've got fiction, which is an entirely different kind of history. Fiction shows you the history of ideals, culture…"

"And why are you interested in that?"

"Because even though I'm super clever and probably the smartest person you'll ever meet, there's always new stuff to learn. I love learning about stuff. And things. Stuff and things never stop being interesting, Ona. Remember that, it may save your life one day."

"Really?"

He stopped and thought about it for a moment as they entered the building. "Actually, probably not, didn't think that one through. But anyway, the library!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly, only for his face to drop. "Where are the books?"

"Books?"

"Yes, books. It's a library, a library needs books. Without books, a library ceases to be a library and becomes… a room with nothing in it. A room with nothing in it pretending to be library."

It was a large hall, marble pillars marking each corner, barren in the middle. The few people actually in the library sat at some of the many computer terminals that lined the walls.

The Doctor sighed. "It's an internet café. I ask for a library, and you take me to Starbucks."

"Starbucks? Is that a planet?"

"Not yet, you'll need to wait…" checked his watch, "three years, five months and a day. Now, let's get to work, Ona. Stuff and things await."

Instead of choosing one of the twenty or so unused terminals, the Doctor sauntered over to one being used by an older man, his moustache twitching with every movement of his mouth. He was suitably perturbed by this strange man almost resting his head on his shoulder.

"Carpal Trees? Sounds nice. Delicious, in fact. Can I use this?"

The man checked around the hall and saw the vacant terminals. "Er… couldn't you use one of the others?"

"Not to worry, won't take a minute," he yanked out the screwdriver and did something to the screen, bringing up several different windows. "There… lovely."

Confounded, the man looked to Ona, who just shrugged, as though the Doctor were some troublesome relative. The man himself, meanwhile, was muttering away, although whether he was talking to himself or them was open for debate.

"Are there any other cities on this planet, Ona?" he asked, his face embedded in the terminal.

"What?"

"Cities, like this one? Diur cities?"

"Oh, um… years and years ago. But not anymore."

"What, you're it?" he asked as he turned to face her, aiming for incredulity but coming across as critical.

"Well… yes."

"What happened to them?"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes, and swirled the screwdriver around in the air. "The cities, what happened to the cities?"

"Oh! I…" she tilted her head while she searched her brain. "I don't know."

He looked down at the old man. "How about you? Got any ideas?"

The man shook his head.

"And you never thought to ask," the Doctor tutted, returning to the screen with a shake of his head. "Ah, you see, stuff and things. The tremors are relatively recent. Only in the past few months. That's an interesting thing. And… you-"

He whipped around to look at her. "What?"

Then, just as rapidly, to the older man at the terminal. "What?"

Then back to the screen. "_What?_"

Ona came forward, and cleared her throat. "Um… what is it?"

"The Noc territory. It's dark there."

"Yes…"

"It's dark all the time."

"That's right."

"And it's light here all the time."

"No, we have night."

The Doctor gave her a look that told her to stop being so pedantic without actually saying the word, which was quite impressive, she thought. "_Yes_, but your night is clear and bright. Too bright. And the daytime in Noc territory… it may as well be night all the time. It was daytime when we were there, and we could barely see anything out of the bars of our cell. And then there's the matter of Noc and Diur."

"Noc and Diur?"

"Yes, Noc and Diur, Nocturnal and Diurnal, how did that happen?" he asked pointedly, as though they were keeping secrets from him. But then it was forgotten and he returned to the terminal.

Becoming confused, Ona walked over to the Doctor, moving into the already crowded workspace. She, the Doctor and the old man were all bunched around the monitor now, talking like children discussing a big secret.

"I'm sorry, but… why is this important?"

"Because it's impossible," the Doctor said quietly, eyes roving all over the screen. "And impossible is both stuff and a thing, so it's _always _important. Even the orbit of your planet doesn't affect the darkness and the light. Your planet is literally cut in half and _that _is bad."

"How bad?"

He scowled, looking frustrated at having to quantify badness. "Bad to the power of ten, bad times a billion, badder than the baddest bad that ever badded a bad. You planet is in half. Planets should not be halved, quartered, quintupled or divided in any way, shape or form. That is how bad it is, Kin Ona."

The old man nodded contemplatively. "That _is_ bad."

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed, pointing a finger at him and then standing up quickly. "But that's enough Wikipedia, let's get some fresh air. Tremors, that's what I need to shake up my day."

"Do you think they have anything to do with the planet being in half?"

"Yes, maybe, probably, possibly, could be, don't know, we'll see." He smirked. "I made an amazing joke back there, by the way. You probably didn't catch it with all the worrying about the planet being in half."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I said… tremors, and then… shake up my day. It was good, because… tremors, shake, yeah?"

Ona exchanged a look with the old man, and they shared a mutual shrug with the Doctor.

"Fine, forget it. Above your heads, obviously. Anyway, need to look at these tremors. Is there somewhere we can go that's underground?"

"We have mines. The entrance is on the other side of the city."

"That's all right, I don't mind walking."

"It's ten kilometres."

"Public transport! Buses, trains, that sort of thing?"

Ona nodded. "There's a bus station close by."

"Right, good," he said, bringing out the sonic screwdriver again and pointing it at the monitor. All the windows he had been looking at closed, bringing up the information on Carpal trees the man had been looking up. "Sorry about that, you can go back to your trees now. Tell you what, boil the leaves and drink them, your wife won't know what's got into you."

The old man looked at the screen, then back to the Doctor. "Oh! thank you," he enthused, returning to his work with extra vigour.

With that, they left the building, trotting down the stairs at a fair pace.

"Incidentally," the Doctor said, "I know Billy Connolly, and he would have laughed himself silly."

* * *

Mas wasn't sure what to make of this peculiar human girl. On the one hand, she was adventurous and exciting and new… but on the other, she was human, and his people had to have a reason to be so scared of them. Didn't they? They wouldn't arbitrarily forbid contact with a particular species for no good reason, would they?

He thought about his parents, about his parents' friends.

Of course they would. Scared, all of them. Not like him. He was something new, and he scared them too, almost as much as the idea of this pretty girl did. People like him who didn't fear anything, who were willing to push past the boundaries those before him had set.

He sensed someone kindred in the Doctor, and especially in Amy. Although the ridiculously short skirt may have made him a bit biased.

Trey didn't seem so interested, but that was hardly surprising. The man was obsessed with someone else, even though the person in question barely acknowledged him most of the time. Then again, she barely acknowledged anyone, so maybe he had good reason to think there was affection there. At the moment, however, he was just looking back to the city, concerned.

"That is…" Amy trailed off, eyes on the border between territories. Her gaze travelled up, way up, looking straight up into the sky, then to her right to the end of the horizon.

"…that is so _cool."_

"It's usually about the same temperature," Trey said absently from behind them.

Amy rolled her eyes, though Mas wasn't sure why. "No, I mean… that's amazing. Has it always been like this? Dark on one side…"

Again, she trailed off, and Mas filled in the blanks. "Since I can remember, yes."

"What about before you were born?"

"Before?" He hadn't thought about that. "Don't know. Never asked," he added, feeling idiotic for it.

She didn't seem to judge him in the same way the Doctor did, which only increased the Amy appreciation index.

"So then? What are we waiting for?"

Eyes closed like a toddler going underwater for the first time, Amy stepped through into darkness. She turned to face them, eyes still closed, and opened them one at a time before smiling widely, taking in her surroundings again.

"Wow. _That _is just weird. Cool, but… weird."

Something suddenly changed for Mas. As soon as Amy had set foot in Noc territory, in fact. Before, he had been only too happy to explore through the dark territory again, find adventure, finally have some fun. But now, seeing this unfamiliar creature step over… he was, rather suddenly, frightened. Scared of what would happen if he followed her.

"You coming?"

Mas swallowed, his throat dry and scratching. He looked to Trey, who was clearly feeling the same tension.

Looking between them quickly, Amy frowned, worried. "What?"

"Uh…" his voice was shaking. What was wrong with him? "I… don't know."

"But I thought you were the brave one," she mocked, sticking out her bottom lip. To accentuate the point, she stepped forward and back over the divide, in and out of the light as she laughed. "Oh, are you scared?

"I'm _not _scared-"

"I am," Trey said, bringing their attention to him. "And I wasn't before. I mean, I _was_, but… not like this. I don't want to move, I'm so scared."

Amy's amused smile slowly gave way to concern. "But… you did it before. You were exploring here when we met you. What's different now?"

Anger was rising in him now, Mas could feel it. What was wrong with him? Why was this so difficult?

"I don't know," he managed. "I just… _really_ don't want to go in there."

* * *

The mines and the processing factories up above them were suitably well guarded, surrounded by fences and surveillance orbs. Fortunately Ona knew enough tricks from her brother to get them past both, scrambling the cameras for a few minutes and slipping through the entrance when the guards changed shifts.

And to think he had wasted the entire journey trying to come up with a thing he could use to get past all of those defences. He hated wasting time on a thing, especially if he could have been spending valuable brainpower concentrating on another thing.

For instance, the message he had received on the psychic paper that was clearly in pain and clearly emanating from Noc territory. And now Amy was walking right towards it, whatever it was, under _his _recommendation? What was he thinking? Sometimes having one hundred million thoughts bouncing about your head at the same time had its disadvantages, and he had found as soon as he changed that it was rather difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time with this face.

But, less of that, more of this.

"What do they mine for here, Ona?" he asked quietly as they snuck around a towering, offline drilling machine.

Ona was about to answer, but looked sheepish as she even contemplated the words.

"Don't know, never asked?"

She nodded.

"Right…"

Reaching into his jacket, the Doctor brought out the sonic screwdriver. It was taking him some time to get used to this one. The older, smaller version had been simpler. This one had twisty things and pushy things and in-y out-y things. But as time went on and he was pursued by progressively faster and nastier creatures, he was getting used to it.

"What are you looking for?"

The Doctor barely bothered glancing at Ona, keeping his eyes on the readings. "I'm trying different sonic spectrums, might be able to locate the source of the tremors. Of course, they may have already tried that."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The people in the mine down below. I'm assuming that's what they're doing down there, because otherwise they're digging underground while everything regularly shakes around them, which would make them a bit thick."

Ona was silent for awhile, and the Doctor was more than pleased with that arrangement. As brilliant as he was, people talking in his ear always tended to distract, although he did enjoy showing off his multi-tasking skills.

Fiddling with the screwdriver, the Doctor moved it through different sonic spectrums, letting it scan for a few seconds before moving on to the next frequency.

"Do you do this a lot?"

"Not really, I was never keen on intense physical labour. Running and climbing, mostly, but not digging. Not usually, anyway."

She studied him with a frown for a few moments before sighing. "No, not mining. I mean… this."

"'This'?"

"Yes, this. Sneaking around, investigating, that kind of thing."

"No," he said defensively. "I always try to stay out of trouble, thank you very much. I'm just… very, very… _very_…"

He cleared his throat. "…very… bad at it."

"Oh."

There was silence again as he scanned, the screwdriver whirring quietly as it worked.

"Are we… going into the mines?" Ona asked, sounding reticent and excited at the same time.

"Hm? No, no need. I should get everything from-"

Suddenly, everything shook. They both stumbled, falling over each other in an awkward heap. The Doctor slapped a hand onto a part of the drilling machine and hauled himself up, wide eyes on the sonic screwdriver. Then the tremor stopped.

"Oh, that's weird. Properly strangely weirdly weird."

"Don't try to help me, it's fine," Ona said from the floor.

Eyes still on the screwdriver, the Doctor said, "Oh, good, I was worried about you for a minute."

Groaning behind him, Ona clambered to her feet, rubbing the back of her head.

"That was different than usual…"

Ona finally grabbing his attention, the Doctor whipped his gaze over to her. "How different? I mean, different, how? I mean, how was it different?"

Looking a little taken aback by the sudden interest, Ona stumbled over her words at first. "Uh, I mean, just… different. Stronger. More sudden."

"Different, stronger and more sudden. Good, that's good, different is good." He got back to work with the sonic screwdriver, going back through the frequencies until there was another tremor.

Both of them were latched on to the drilling machine this time, so they merely exchanged an interested glance. Well, the Doctor was interested, Ona just looked worried and confused. The Doctor changed frequencies, and the ground was still again.

"Did… did you do that?"

"No," he droned, fixing her with what he hoped was a humbling stare. "_That_ was an earthquake. _This_ is a screwdriver. A screwdriver can't cause an earthquake."

"It looked like it did."

His admittedly condescending look gave way to an intrigued smile as he nodded. "Didn't it just?"

Still smiling, the Doctor moved back to the setting again, and laughed out loud when the tremors started up again. A sonic screwdriver causing an earthquake. The quake continued on for a few moments before there was a distinct thud, followed by a boom.

The Doctor deactivated the screwdriver. "Did you hear something?"

"You mean the rumbling?"

"No, I mean the… thud-boom."

"The… thud-boom?"

"Yeah. Like a thud…" He gestured a hand around, trying to find the right gesture, "…_boom."_

"All I heard was everything shaking."

"Yeah, but underneath the shaking there was a thud-boom. Thud-booms and shaking, shaking and thud-booms. When do you get shaking and thud-booms? And a distinct thud-boom. Very distinct. In fact…" He snuck around the drilling machine and looked to the floor in the middle of what the Doctor could only describe as the car park. Although a little bit bigger to accommodate the large building vehicles, obviously.

A depression in the ground. Very slight, but it was there. Circular, like a crater. He ran his hand over the ground before putting his ear to it. As if something had pushed up, and then retreated…

Jumping to his feet, the Doctor whirled to face Ona. "Right, now I would tell you to stand back, but this could come from anywhere, so stand not too far forward, not too far backwards, and be ready to stand anywhere at any time. Clear?"

She nodded quickly, her head moving in more of a jiggling motion rather than going back and forth. What had rattled her so much? Shrugging it off, the Doctor turned back to the crater, and pointed the sonic screwdriver right at it. He switched it on, sending out the frequency.

The tremors started, and Ona grabbed the Doctor's arm almost instantly. His eyes were on the crater, however, even as he struggled to keep his balance.

Someone shouted from across the complex, and several burly men in jumpsuits were running over, flanked by armed guards. This just made the Doctor smile all the more. If he could have pressed the button on the screwdriver harder, he probably would have. The ground suddenly jumped up beneath his feet, thumping him a few inches into the air and stumbling back.

The guards and workers stopped as they reached him, all eyes on the crater that had just been created below. Something from below had tried to push its' way up.

The tremors continued, growing more forceful. With another thud-boom, the same crater burst upwards again, dust and chunks of the ground spurting up.

"Third time's the charm," he muttered to no-one in particular.

After another pause, the ground exploded in front of him. Ona latched onto him, but the Doctor couldn't really share her fear as whatever it was continued to grow and grow and grow, like an out of control sprouting plant. He certainly couldn't help the hoots of joy that escaped him.

The Doctor put a hand above his eyes as he looked up at whatever it was that had come from beneath.

"Well," he announced loudly. "That's something, isn't it?"

What exactly the something in question was escaped him at the moment. It was enormous, at least as tall as a giraffe, and resembled a cross between a slug and a black, charred earthworm. Although the eyes weren't apparent, the very top was bent down as though to look at them, moving frantically. Fearfully.

Then the guards brought up their weapons and opened fire, aiming for the head.

"Stop-" The Doctor raced over, but was neatly elbowed in the face by one of the guards, falling on his back. He looked up at the creature as it writhed in pain.

It didn't make a sound. That was probably what hurt the most. And it didn't retreat. It simply… stood there, taking the punishment, all the while looking for something, head whipping about ever more frantically until finally, with a heart-breaking shudder, it went limp. It tumbled backwards, crashing through several massive drilling vehicles, the ground rumbling from the impact.

The miniature quake tweaked something in his mind, something that had occurred to him but he had left it alone, distracted by the creature…

"The tremors stopped," he muttered.

Ona helped him to his feet as the guards and workers raced over to the deceased creature.

"What?"

"When the… that thing appeared, the tremors stopped. That thing was causing the tremors."

"That? Really?"

He nodded. "But they had to have been attracted by something, Ona, the tremors are only recent."

He looked down, and saw the sonic screwdriver was still on. He flicked it off.

"Sonic technology," he said quietly, sadly. "A particular sonic frequency, disrupting and disturbing and… agitating. Three point five megahertz with a cross-pattern of six-oh-four…"

"But…"

The Doctor looked at her, and saw the familiar expression of someone thinking things through, weighing up different options, putting the puzzle together.

"We've used sonic technology for years, and the tremors-"

"-only started a few months ago," he chorused with her, throwing his hands about wildly as his sometimes very thick brain caught up. "They only started a few months ago!"

She seemed genuinely caught up in his excitement, but still had that look of confusion about her. "But… what does that mean?"

"It means-!" His grin froze, and gradually melted as the implications sifted through. "It means something has been calling them here. Something new."

Suddenly aware of the other people around them - although their attention was on the giant slug-worm thing - Ona moved in closer.

"Do you mean… something deliberate?"

"Maybe, maybe not, possibly, possibly not. Could just be new technology. But whatever it is, I can track it," he said, flicking on the sonic screwdriver and illuminating the space between them. It began to beep regularly, the frequency of the beeps increasing as he focused the screwdriver on the city in the distance.

"That's the city," Ona said, her voice hushed.

"Yep, thought so." He clicked the screwdriver back into shape again and slipped it away. "Off we go again, Kin Ona. To the bus!"

He glanced over at the crowd forming at the head of the creature, and started backing up towards the now unguarded front gate.

"Quietly," he added. Silently, they disappeared, heading for the nearest station before they were likely shut down.

* * *

(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews so far, everybody, they're very much appreciated. Keep it up!)


	5. Digging

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Four: Digging**_

"Come on boys, nearly there," Amy said, a little breathless from trudging through the mud. Her trainers were not built for this. Although technically they were the Doctors'. Or used to be, she didn't see him wearing Converse at all anymore. Just the once, when they first met. Well, just the twice, if you include the fifteen year gap. Sometimes she wondered why he was wearing those clothes in the first place if he preferred the bowtie and tweed jacket look (which he clearly did).

Not that she could blame him for switching to boots at the moment; she was fairly sure the mud was seeping into the maroon trainers. Of course, her choice of footwear wouldn't have been a problem if Mas wasn't leading her on a merry chase up a very steep, very muddy hill.

"Mas, remind me why we're climbing up this hill when we could have walked around?"

"You'll see," he said insistently, which surprisingly, didn't make Amy feel any better. She _was_ convinced, however, that something good would reveal itself on the other side, judging from how coy the usually talkative Mas was being.

It had taken some doing, but Amy had finally managed to get the boys across the border. Simply walking deeper into the dark territory seemed to do the trick, and Mas' pride had overridden his fear. Judging from the way Trey rolled his eyes as he followed, this kind of behaviour was clearly commonplace for Mas.

Mas was still reluctant to lead the way, however, despite his earlier gung-ho attitude. There was definitely something weird going on there. Why would he be so afraid of the place when he had been excitedly navigating through it when they had first met him? What was different now?

Of course, the obvious answer was that they had met herself and the Doctor. But how could they be affecting Mas and Trey (outside of the obvious glances Mas was throwing her way - which wasn't exactly a bad thing, mind)? Were the other Diurs back at the city feeling the same way? Was the Doctor noticing the same thing about Ona?

She sighed and shook her head. Lots of things to talk to the Doctor about later. Of course, she would rather he be here now instead of gallivanting around checking out earthquakes. She would have loved to share her reaction to the half-shadow, half light border between territories; he would have been giddy as a schoolboy.

Mas hissed behind her, and she felt his hand on her arm, yanking her down. The brown streak it left on her jacket was not appreciated, and she shot Mas an appropriate scowl.

He nodded to the tip of the hill in response, and started crawling ahead of her. Finally, he was showing that gusto again.

Trey, on the other hand, was nowhere near as adventurous, and looked like he was trying to keep his eyes on everything at once.

"You coming?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm just… keeping an eye out."

"Come on," Mas whispered excitedly from the top, beckoning with his hand.

Amy noted the same eye roll from Trey again, and gave him a curious smile. "You don't like the way he does things, do you?"

Trey didn't look at her, still casting his gaze around the misty field. "I don't really think about it, to be honest."

"Of course you don't," she said, eliciting a look from him that made her smile. She turned to go, then thought of something else.

"Incidentally, I don't think Ona approves either."

The most transparent attempt at nonchalance passed over Trey's face. "Why would I care what Ona thinks?"

She shot him a patient smile. "Would you really be out here if you didn't?"

His face didn't change, probably for fear of being caught out.

Amy nodded, and started crawling again. "Thought so…"

Leaving Trey behind, Amy was quickly beside an impatient Mas, who seemed rather excited to show her what was beyond. She reached the summit and peered over.

A vaguely interested grunt escaped her at the positively medieval village that sat in the distance. She frowned.

"Wait… that's how the Nocs live?"

Mas shook his head in disbelief. "I know…"

"But they're in huts and using campfire and…" She squinted to make something out, wishing she had some binoculars. "…is that a wooden cart?"

"They're a primitive people, I know."

"No, but back in the prison… they were using guns, and they knew what the sonic screwdriver was."

Mas frowned. "So?"

Feeling either very strange or very smart or very stupid, Amy struggled to put her objection into words.

"_So…_ that doesn't match up. Haven't you noticed this when you've been here before?"

"Um…" Mas looked back to Trey like this was the strangest conversation he'd ever had. "I never really thought about it. They're Nocs, they're… backwards. Primitive. Nothing about them makes sense."

Amy 'hmm'ed, unconvinced. "So, are they hostile then?"

"What?"

"The villagers," she said, nodding to the encampment.

"I wouldn't take the risk," Trey interjected, crawling up beside her. "We should leave before they spot us."

"So you don't know, then."

"I know that only three people have ever come back from this place." There looked like there was more to that story, but Trey didn't seem like he was into sharing.

"But that could have been because of the soldiers, not these people."

"What's the difference?" Mas snapped. "They're all Nocs."

"Right, so if one Diur went on a mass-murdering spree that would make all of you mass-murderers, would it?"

Mas looked like he was chewing a toffee the size of a cricket ball while he tried to think of a response.

"Look," Trey said, his voice softer and more reasonable, "it's not worth the risk. Let's just head back. Maybe you can come back with the Doctor and-"

"Get out!" she scoffed, "I want to meet the locals."

Since there was nothing else to discuss, she leapt to her feet and dusted herself off. Trey was up next to her in an instant, while Mas remained where he was, lying on the ground.

"Let her go, Trey. Get herself killed if she wants."

"Oh, diddums," she pouted, hands on her hips, "would you like mummy to hold your hand?"

He laughed humourlessly, jumping to his feet and putting his face in hers. "Is there something you're trying to say?"

"No, I think you say enough for everyone," she said sweetly, with a smile to match - which only seemed to rile him more.

Trey, meanwhile, had the smallest of amused smiles on his face, which was the first time Amy had seen him show any kind of emotion outside of caution. His overly worrisome nature reminded her of something, or someone, but she couldn't quite place it. It hurt, whatever it was.

"What are you smiling at?" Mas grumbled, folding his arms huffily.

"Oh, stop being such a baby, you'll enjoy it once we get going," she said, giving him a punch on the arm. "Come on boys, let's go and mingle!"

Announcement made, Amy tumbled on down the hill, her momentum forcing her into an energetic run. The others were close behind, and she smiled at their predictability. Just like boys on the playground. That is, when she wasn't scaring them off with stories about the Raggedy Doctor.

* * *

The Doctor loved the sound of the sonic screwdriver. Always working, always reliable. It had been a bit off-putting at first, using this new fangled version. But then he had discovered how it could record bits of music and then tell him what the song was, and he was sold. Still couldn't text with it, though, he'd have to sort that out.

It bleeped faster as they walked up the street.

"In that building," he said over his shoulder, though Ona was nearly overtaking him in her eagerness.

So much so, in fact, that she rounded the corner before he did and promptly back-pedalled into him, knocking the sonic screwdriver from his hand. Eyes boggling, he had to do an awkward juggle to keep a grip on it.

"Careful," he scolded. "These things don't grow on trees, you know."

"Doctor."

"Although they _do _grow in the TARDIS, but I think she gets sick of making new ones."

"Doctor."

"Once, I didn't have a screwdriver for _three_ lifetimes, had to build one myself eventually-"

"Doctor!"

"Hm? Right, yes, sorry. What's the problem?"

"The security service is here," she hissed, her back pressed to the wall.

He frowned, slipping the screwdriver away. Arms rigid down by his sides, the Doctor leant forward and popped his head around the side of the building. Two cars, sirens flashing, two officers on each car. Two more emerged from the front doors, leading a man, cuffed and a little bruised into one of the vehicles.

The Doctor dove back inside, back to the wall. "That's weird. Oddly strangely weirdly weird."

He brought out the sonic screwdriver and waved it about as he did a little scan. He checked the readouts and huffed thoughtfully.

"Signal's gone, they must have turned it off. Which means _that _man was transmitting the signal. But how did they… I wonder…"

The screwdriver extended again, he scanned for any other signals, and was greeted by an ear piercing bleep that made them both wince.

"Sorry," he muttered, glancing at Ona before whipping his head to the sonic screwdriver, and then back to her again.

"It's you."

She frowned. "What?"

"There's a signal coming from…" He put the screwdriver away and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The tracker."

"The-" Finally cottoning on, Ona scooped the device out of her pocket and handed it over.

"Yes, hello everybody, how are you?" he announced loudly, speaking into the device. "Someone has trust issues, don't they?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" He grabbed the device and sonic-ed it, deactivating the listening device inside. "They've been spying little spy-ers, spying with their spying… spy… thing. They listened in, followed us, and got to him before we could."

The two cars took off down the road behind them, shooting off into the distance. The Doctor walked out into the street, rubbing his palms with his thumbs.

"So what do we do now?" Ona asked.

"Now," he said, clapping his hands together, "I have a look at the sonic signal device he was using, and then…"

He grinned and looked at Ona. "Ever wanted to be a spy, Ona?"

* * *

Mas' heart was racing, and not in that pleasant thrilled way it usually did in these situations. He was actually terrified, almost frozen if not for the continuous jostling of Amy and Trey's smug smile.

He had planted himself on a tree stump as soon as they had entered the confines of the Noc village. The fact that the villagers ignored them (or at least stayed out of their way) was of some comfort to him, but not the indicator of safety that Amy made it out to be. Trey didn't seem convinced either, but had somehow put aside his obvious discomfort and was accompanying Amy around the place.

Amy turned to look at him, several huts down. "Mas! Come here, we've met a nice Noc! Her name's Melina!"

All he could bring himself to do was shake his head, and he scowled at his cowardliness. What was the matter with him? Any other time, this would excite him no end, and Trey would be the one standing back, watching from afar in paranoia. But there he was, actually enjoying himself, or doing a close approximation.

After several deep, frustrated breaths, Mas jumped to his feet, making two passing villagers yelp and cower. He ignored them as best he could as he strode over to Amy and Trey. Amy was sat on a wooden deck in front of a rather large house. Trey stood watching both her and their new companion.

Sat beside Amy was an old woman, dark hair lined with grey, her face grubby and tired. She was wearing brown rags, and didn't look like she could kill anyone. What were his people so afraid of? What was _he _so afraid of, without having any reason to be?

"Is this him?" she asked, speaking to Trey.

Trey nodded, and the woman got to her feet, inspecting Mas like an expert judge.

"Doesn't look familiar…"

He frowned, looking at the others. "What does she mean?"

"She remembers a group of your people coming here, years ago," Amy said.

"Fifteen years ago. My father was one of those people," Mas said, exchanging a glance with Trey that he hoped Amy wouldn't pick up on.

She did, and said simply, "She recognised Trey."

"She-" He looked down Melina, who was slowly sitting herself back down next to Amy. "You did?"

She nodded, looking exhausted by the effort. "Resembles his father very much."

Amy looked up at the two of them curiously, though she managed to look judgemental and disappointed at the same time. "Anyone care to explain?"

Mas looked to Trey, who took a deep breath before speaking.

"Our fathers were on the same expedition to find out more about the Nocs. They were attacked, and only three survived. One was Mas' father. The other was a man called Shorn, a security consultant in the city. The third… hung himself."

A great wave of regret seemed to flow over Amy's face, her words reluctant. "And that third man…"

"…was my father."

She nodded awkwardly, clearly sharing Mas' discomfort with heightened emotional situations.

"Sorry. I didn't mean… sorry."

Trey shook it off, though he still didn't look at her. "It happened a long time ago. But that's how I know this place is dangerous. Something killed twenty men and was so horrific that my father…"

"Did they go the Palace?" Melina asked, and all eyes were suddenly on her.

Amy frowned, glancing at Mas and Trey. "The Palace?"

The woman nodded, eyes darting about fearfully. "It is a sacred place, but also a place of great evil. We are never to go there."

"Says who?"

"It…" she scowled, as though such a question were ludicrous. "It simply _is_. My parents told me, and their parents before them. It is in our blood. No-one goes to the Palace, and those that do suffer a horrible death. Few have come back alive, and those who did returned with weapons that could only be born through witchcraft. Metal weapons that fit in the hand and expel fire… monstrous."

"Explains why the soldiers had guns," Mas muttered, little pieces of information connecting together in his mind. It was quite an exciting feeling, solving puzzles and learning and understanding. It had never really happened to him before.

"'The Palace'," Amy said in her best deep, epic voice. "Sounds interesting, wouldn't you say, boys?"

Mas grinned, feeling his adventurous spirit return and happier for it. "Oh, definitely."

Trey, meanwhile, was deep in thought, arms folded as he stared straight ahead at some imaginary point over Amy's shoulder.

"When did this happen, Melina?" he asked with a gentility and respect that Mas was not expecting. "The people who went to the Palace and came back with weapons. When did they go?"

The older woman looked curious. "A long time ago."

"_How _long?"

"How long? I do not understand." She was confused by the very concept. Primitive, just as Mas had been taught.

"How many years, months, days?" Mas said, rolling his eyes. This was futile.

"I do not understand."

"Um…" Amy scratched her head while she thought, then shrugged as she said, "Moons? How many moons, Melina."

"Ah," she said, nodding. "Far too many to count, child."

Still not satisfied, Trey insisted. "Was it before or after you saw our people?"

"It was afterwards."

Trey nodded thoughtfully. "They must have taken the weapons the expedition left behind."

"Does it matter? Look, let's just go, we can find the Palace ourselves," Mas groaned, exasperated and waving down the street, if it could be called that. It was all mud and grass and…

Soldiers.

Their pistols raised, the soldiers advanced. Amy was on her feet in an instant. Trey slowly put his hands in the air. Amy and Mas did the same, and they all moved in together as a group. That fear was back again, and his hands were shaking beside his head. Looking over, he saw that Melina hadn't moved. She had just bowed her head in sadness.

* * *

This was becoming something of a habit for Ona today, sneaking around. Not that she minded, she was starting to find it quite interesting and exciting. Hard not to when the Doctor seemed to take such pleasure in it. He hadn't found much back at the man's home, though Ona had recognised the pictures there as belonging to Shorn, the security consultant for the city.

The Doctor had described Shorn's sonic signal device as 'incredibly basic'. It sent out a few intense pulses now and again, attracting the worms but never staying on long enough to draw them directly to the source of the signal. Which, considering he lived on the top floor of a building with thirty floors, was probably a good thing.

Afterwards, Ona had led the way to the security station for the city, where they had snuck in the back entrance and struggled to find exactly why Shorn was being held for questioning. But, after some patient watching and waiting, they had found him. And the questioning officer was on his way to talk to him.

She watched the Doctor intently, their backs pressed to the wall as they waited.

"All right, here he comes," the Doctor whispered. "Now, remember. Bump-" he mimed hitting someone with his shoulder, "-and drop," he said, dropping the imaginary object into the other person's pocket.

Ona looked down at the transmitter in her hand, and clutched it tighter. "Why can't you do this?"

"Because I'm the dashing alien in the bowtie, and everyone is keeping an eye out for me because they think I'm invading."

She frowned. "_Are_ you invading?"

"Don't be ridiculous," he scolded, glancing back around the corner. "I'm one of the pod people, we've already invaded, you just don't know it."

Her breath hitched in her throat as she processed what the Doctor had just said.

His dark eyes bored into her in disbelief. "That was a joke."

Rolling his eyes at her visible relief, he checked around the corner and darted back, gesturing with frenzied hands and hissing 'bump and drop, bump and drop' as he scrambled past and into the janitorial closet behind her.

Screwing up her courage, Ona emerged out into the corridor and bumped shoulders with the security officer, dropping the circular listening device into his jacket pocket. He looked only mildly irritated with the collision, and ignored her apology as he thundered off down the corridor. Fair enough, she supposed. Shorn _had _just been found out as a security threat to the entire city.

She went back and knocked on the door. "All clear," she whispered, and the door slid open to reveal the expectant, boyish face of the Doctor.

"Well?"

Ona nodded, unable to hold back the smile. "All done."

"Oh, I could kiss you!"

She took a step back, and his smile dropped.

"I'm not going to, though. Honestly, who do you think I am? I don't just go kissing people willy-nilly across time and space." He took a moment, thought about it. "I _try _not to, anyway."

After another moment, he added in an inaudible grumble, "I try not to _initiate_ them. I can't help it if I'm irresistible. Although more with some faces than others. Anyway, let's listen."

Sonic screwdriver to his ear, the Doctor nodded for them to retreat further down the corridor as the audio crackled out, occasionally distorting into the artificial whirr of the device.

"_Shorn,"_ the officer greeted, the door sliding shut behind him. There was silence from the other end, and the Doctor slapped the screwdriver irritably.

"I think he just didn't reply," Ona whispered.

The Doctor nodded with a silent 'oh'. "Do you know Shorn?"

She took a moment to think about it. It _did _sound familiar. "I think it's someone my father knew."

"_I had hoped we wouldn't see you here again."_

Suddenly excited again, the Doctor put up a quieting finger as he listened closer.

"_Your psychologist was sure the delusions were gone."_

"Psychologist…" the Doctor muttered.

"_They weren't delusions."_

"_Of course they weren't."_

Another tense silence followed.

"_Why did you do it, Shorn?"_

"_Nothing matters here, you know."_

"_What?"_

"_Nothing matters. Not you, not me, not this city."_

"_Not even your family?"_

That seemed to stifle him for a moment. Ona noticed that the Doctor seemed to be thinking about something else. Was he even listening to this?

"_No," _Shorn finally replied. _"Not even my family."_

"_Is that why they disowned you?"_

"_I disowned __**them!**__"_ Shorn cried. There were the sounds of a scuffle as he was probably forced back into his chair. _"They don't matter! I don't matter! Nothing matters! Not since the Palace!"_

The Doctor yanked the screwdriver away, as though burned. "Ever heard of the Palace, Ona?"

She shrugged. "Never."

"Anything similar, maybe something your father or his friends have said?"

At a loss, Ona was about to throw her arms up in defeat when something clicked together in her mind. "Shorn was part of the expedition into the Noc territory, the one my father was a part of."

"Then why don't you know more about the Nocs?" the Doctor asked, not just looking at her but looking _into _her, searching her eyes.

A little uncomfortable under his intense gaze, Ona had to clear her throat. "What?"

"There was an expedition into Noc territory, so why don't your people know more about them?"

"I, um… I don't know."

"And never thought to ask," he said quickly, whirling around and pacing in front of her, tapping the screwdriver against his forehead. "So, Shorn goes to Noc territory, finds the Palace with the others… or maybe he was the _only_ one who found it…"

He strode over to her again, purposefully. "What happened to the expedition, Ona?"

"Only three came back alive. My father, Shorn, and… Trey's father."

"I've met your father, in the council chambers, Shorn's in there… where's Trey's father, what happened to him?"

"He…" Ona bowed her head. "He killed himself. It's why my father took Trey in."

The Doctor didn't seem at all bothered by this information. "Did your father ever mention anything about what happened?"

"No. He refuses to talk about it."

"Yes, wonder why, sounds lovely so far… and I've sent Amy out into it," he sighed, looking sadly off into space before suddenly bursting to life.

"Right! Sorry Ona, got to dash, I've let big giant slug-worm things distract me when there's something rather more dangerous going on in Noc territory. Something to do with that Palace."

He turned, putting the screwdriver away before whirling around to face her. "Best you stay here, already got Amy, Mas and Trey to worry about, don't need you on my mind too. Besides, your parents are probably worried… about… you?"

His words faded as he spotted something over Ona's shoulder. She followed his gaze and saw the security officer she had planted the listening device on charging past, followed by several others. More officers rounded the corner behind the Doctor and shoved their way past, not even acknowledging them.

After giving her a worried look, the Doctor ran along after them, and Ona followed. Something was happening outside, and everyone was racing down the stairs to see what it was.

In the lobby, a mother was crouched in front of her little boy, who just stared off into space, unblinking, unmoving.

The Doctor ran over, kneeling down and inspecting him as he had done Ona earlier. He snapped his fingers and waved his hand in front of the boy's face before the mother slapped it away, shouting at him to leave her son alone. He retreated before she became any louder, glancing at the other officers as he moved to Ona's side.

But they weren't paying any attention to him. Children outside, on the streets… they were exactly the same as the boy in the lobby. Staring, frozen, as though hypnotised.

"You."

The Doctor whirled around to look at the boy in the lobby. But it wasn't just him speaking; it was all the children, staring ahead, addressing no-one in particular.

"You."

Fear rising in her, Ona looked to the Doctor. "Doctor, what's happening, what are they doing?"

"You."

"I don't know," he muttered, head whipping from one child to the next.

"You. You. You. You will. You will. You will. You will."

Confusion was all that Ona could make out on the Doctor's face. "Telepathy, maybe? Some psychic… influence…" his entire face widened as he rifled around in his pocket, bringing out a thin leather wallet. He looked at the paper inside.

"You will stop. You will stop. You will stop. You will stop."

"You will stop," the Doctor chorused with them, reading the paper in front of him. He snapped the wallet shut and put it away, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration as he paced around. As he spoke, Ona wasn't sure if he was speaking to himself or her - he spoke so clearly and loudly, like a teacher bouncing ideas off his students.

"It didn't say that before. It wasn't coherent, but it had to be a cry for help, there was so much pain behind it. But why call for help and then send it away? What's changed, what's different?"

He froze and ran to the entrance to the building, pressing his face to the glass doors and looking skyward. Ona followed, giving the chanting little boy a wide berth as she walked over.

"What is it?" she asked frantically, fear like she had never felt before gripping her.

The Doctor frowned as he looked at her, troubled. "Is it just me, or is it darker outside?"

* * *

Kan fought back the yawn that threatened to roll out of his mouth, but after a cursory look around, let it loose. Giant black slug-worm things. _That_ was what was causing the tremors all this time? Seemed a bit far fetched.

But then, there it was, lying right behind him and the two other guards left to look after the area. Of course, what three people could do against something that big was beyond Kan. Shout at it? Mock it? Maybe as a last resort they could throw their helmets at it.

Just as he smiled at his own joke, he heard something behind him. He turned in time to see a puff of dust rising up from the crater the worm had climbed out of. Kan glanced over at his fellow guards. They hadn't moved.

He frowned. "Did you…"

They looked at him, looking more worried than Kan was expecting. He awkwardly put his hands up.

"Uh, never mind. Sorry."

After they looked away, Kan shot one more concerned glance at the crater before he turned back. But then, something caught his eye. Something white and spherical, poking out of the mud. He crept over cautiously, a fear stronger than any he had felt before rushing through him.

"Kan?"

It was Port, the guard closest to him. His near mono-brow was rumpled in a confused frown. "What are you doing?"

"There's…" he paused to swallow, his mouth dry. "There's something in the crater."

Port and the other guard (Kan didn't know her name, just that she hated the constant looks Port gave her that he thought were cute and flirty but were actually a little creepy) were huddled beside him instantly.

"What is it? Can you see?"

"Not sure," he said, kneeling down to get a closer look. "Looks artificial."

"We should call a containment squad," Port muttered, and reached for the comm device strapped to his belt.

The white ball (or whatever it was) moved, making Kan yelp out in surprise and fall on his rear. His fellows had their rifles up in an instant.

Kan tried to control his shaky breathing. What was wrong with him? He never used to get this frightened on the job. They had been trained for years for these situations, what was different now? Taking a deep breath, Kan concentrated and got back to his feet.

"Kan," Port warned, "what are you doing?"

One hand pointing his rifle at the crater, Kan started moving towards the white ball, his other hand outstretched.

Something burst out of the crater, knocking him off his feet and then charging at the others. It growled and snarled as it went, moving faster than anyone could react. It was upon the female guard instantly, doing something to her head that made her scream and convulse before falling silent.

Port opened fire, hitting the creature in the back. It stood bolt upright, crying out to the sky in pain. It whirled around to face them, red eyes glowing. It was humanoid, whatever it was, dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit. Two legs, two arms, hands with thumbs and four fingers… but the head. The head was bald, thin eyes pushed far apart. The nose and mouth were replaced with red, fleshy tendrils dangling down. From somewhere in the curtain of protuberances, a white cable hung out, attached to the white ball Kan had spotted earlier.

The beast held it in one hand, almost like a weapon.

It leapt at Port, latching onto his neck with one hand and pressing the ball into his forehead with the other. Electricity danced over his head as he screamed, face crumpled in agony. Kan brought his rifle up and shot the creature through the head.

It fell to the ground with Port. They were both still. Kan lowered the rifle, his breathing light and fast. Summoning courage he wasn't sure he had, Kan crept forward, rifle pointed at the monster.

He heard a noise behind him, and whirled around. Another of the creatures burst from the pit and leapt on him.

The last thing he saw was the red eyes, rage and anger and evil staring into his soul.

* * *

(A/N: I am looking forward to listening to the Doctor Who Proms a little too much.

Anyway, all the reviews have been great, everyone. Keep them coming!)


	6. Movement

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Five: Movement**_

The chanting pushing him on, the Doctor ran out into the road, arms whirling around him as he checked up and down the street. It was everywhere. Not that there was that many children on the street, but judging by all the calls the security force were getting, it was pretty widespread.

Ona was beside him in an instant, eyes on the boy in the lobby. "Is something controlling them?"

He nodded. "Delivering a message. But to who? And why?"

Something exploded several streets over, and everyone ducked out of fright. Except the Doctor, naturally, who just looked to the source of the noise curiously. Smoke billowed up into the sky from some unseen building, his view blocked by the skyscraper in front of him.

And then he heard the voice. That screeching, grating voice, screaming out into the sky.

"_YOU WILL STOP!"_

The Doctor looked at Ona. "What?"

There was another explosion. People scrambled around him, the parents scooping up their still chanting children.

"What?"

Three Daleks flew overhead, their usual battle-cry replaced, but still using that same horrific nightmare voice.

"_YOU WILL STOP!"_

"What?" the Doctor cried.

With a sound the Doctor hadn't heard in years, they fired on the building just beside the Doctor, debris and cement tumbling down on them. Yanked out of the way by Ona, the Doctor stumbled back as it crashed to the ground, his eyes still on the Daleks. There was something odd about them, something…

They swooped off down the street and around the corner. The security officers were gone, no doubt inside the station mobilising troops and preparing weapons. All of them useless.

"Doctor, do you know what those things are?"

"How- what- when- how are they… _what…_ why?"

"Doctor, what are they?"

"They're… Daleks, they're called Daleks," he said absently, bringing out the sonic screwdriver and holding it in front of him. There had to be something he could pick up, something that would remind him why they seemed so… off. The trail left by their anti-gravity systems was different, but something else, something about the sound of their gunsticks, the energy discharge…

"They're old," he murmured, gaping.

"What?"

"They're old, Ona. They're Daleks, and they're old. Daleks I haven't seen for a very long time…"

Three officers abruptly flew through the glass doors of the security building, shattering them and sending shards tumbling out. They skid along the road, coming to a halt at the Doctor and Ona's feet.

Two Ood walked out of the building in unison, their movements eerily synchronised as they approached.

"_You will stop," _they said politely, their tone somewhat off-put by the red eyes and the menacing glow of the orbs in their hands.

"Doctor…" Ona said cautiously, moving in closer to him. "What are they?"

"They're Ood. Oods, here, on Stoarn. Oods, here, on Stoarn?"

They were walking towards him, and he backed up with a protective arm over Ona, screwdriver up in front of him uselessly.

"What do you mean?" he asked loudly, having to shout over the explosions and sirens in the distance. "Stop what? Who are you talking to?"

"_You will stop."_

"Yes, very helpful, but honestly, _who are you talking to?"_

The Doctor felt his back bump against the wall.

"_You will stop."_

"No, _you _will stop right there, or… there will be big consequences. I'll overload the synaptic matrixes of the communication orb and send a feedback surge through your mind that will spread through every other Ood on the planet."

"_You will stop."_

"Just do it, that feedback thing," Ona hissed.

"I can't," he muttered over his shoulder.

"They attacked first, they're about to kill us!"

"No, I mean, I can't, that was a clever lie to stall them."

The Ood were still approaching, the communication orbs brought up in front of them. _"You will stop."_

"All right then, no overloading synaptic stuff. But I'm warning you, come any closer and I will… do something very nasty with this sonic screwdriver. So nasty and horrible and completely villainous it will make you blush. I don't know if Ood blush, but if you did, what I am about to do would definitely make you do that."

"_You will stop."_

"Fine, ignore me. Don't listen to a word I say, I tend to talk rubbish most of the time anyway. Just, whatever you do, don't look to your right."

They didn't, and because of that, they missed the soldiers arriving and taking aim. The Ood flew across the road from the impact of the bullets, limply tumbling. Their red eyes and white orbs dimmed once they came to a rest.

The Doctor let out a breath of relief, putting the screwdriver away.

"Well," he said, turning to the soldiers. "Usually I'm not one for brute force, but that was-"

Their rifles clicked as they took aim, the nozzles almost poking him in the eye. His hands slowly went up as the words died in his mouth.

Eyes focused on the barrels, the Doctor cleared his throat. "Something I can help you with? And if you say 'you will stop', Imight just scream."

"Call off the attacks," the soldier in the middle grunted.

The Doctor felt his jaw about to drop off. "Beg pardon?"

"Call these attacks off, _now."_

"Call- I'm not doing this! Those Ood were about to kill me, and the Daleks-"

"You know their names, that's evidence enough."

He rolled his eyes, overwhelmed by their stupidity. "Oh, because I _know things_, that's a great reason to suspect me. Ona knows a great recipe for chocolate cake that I bet you don't, are you going to shoot her as well?"

"'Chocolate cake'?" the soldier scowled, looking to his fellow grunts.

"You don't have chocolate cake here? Well, that's just the icing on the cake… that doesn't exist…" Blinking the distracting train of thought away, the Doctor smiled at the soldiers. "Sorry, what were we talking about?"

Click.

"Oh, right, the guns, yes."

Before he could utter another word, Ona was in front of him, arms out in a pretty ineffective attempt at a human shield. Well, a Diur shield. He had been around Earth for too long.

"Get out of the way, ma'am," the same soldier ordered.

"Do you know who I am?" Ona announced, haughtier than the Doctor had ever heard her.

The soldier paused for a moment before replying. "Kin Ona, the daughter of Kin Shriner. Now, please, ma'am, move aside."

"No. In fact, I would like you to move aside, and lower your weapons while you're at it."

"We can't do that, this alien is a threat to-"

"I've been with him the entire time he's been here, and he's done nothing to make me think he's behind these attacks. He's no danger to anyone here. Except maybe himself, the way he runs around like a drunken giraffe."

"'Drunken giraffe'?" the Doctor mouthed, scowling.

The soldier wasn't convinced. "Ma'am…"

"Soldier. You will lower your weapon and stand aside. He's probably our best chance of _stopping _this attack, and you want to shoot him? I thought you were supposed to be smart to be in the military."

"You'd think so, yeah…" the Doctor muttered, but quickly clammed up when the soldiers threw a collective glare in his direction. "Sorry."

"So," Ona said definitively. "Are you going to put those down, or shoot me trying to get to him?"

The glare now directed at Ona, the soldier held it for a few seconds. Explosions from elsewhere in the city made the Doctor impatient, so he slipped from behind Ona and walked to the middle of the street, sonic screwdriver in front of him.

"Stop there-"

"Look, just shoot me if you're going to shoot me," the Doctor snapped, eyes still on the screwdriver. "I don't have time for all the drama, frankly."

He followed the vapour trail from the Daleks' antigravity systems, tracked their trajectory. They were making regular passes along the same block; typical Dalek behaviour during invasions. Although they weren't aiming for the people, just the buildings. Scare tactics, which seemed to be working. But why would the Daleks care about scaring people? Why not just exterminate them?

He put the thought away along with the sonic screwdriver and whirled around, rushing over to Ona and the still slightly wary soldiers. Thankfully their rifles were now at their sides instead of pointed in his direction.

"Right, I'm off. You, Chocolate Cake," he said, pointing at the soldier who had earlier wanted him dead. "Guard her with your life, she's important and on top of that, she's brilliant."

Smiling, he shook her hand. "It was nice to meet you, Kin Ona, thank you for all your help."

Her hand was limp in his, and she looked down to the handshake I confusion. "But… what if we need you?"

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before extending out a hand. "I'll take the tracker, you can speak to me through that. Get the frequency from Chocolate Cake, I'm sure he's been among the people listening in on us."

Looking a little dizzy from all the information, Ona nodded, numbly handing over the tracker. The Doctor stuffed it in his jacket pocket without so much as a cursory look. Plenty of time for that later.

"So… you're going to Noc territory?"

"That's right," he said, casting his gaze up to the sky but pointing over his shoulder at the security building, "and I'm doing it by running into that building."

He whirled around to leave, stopped, and turned back to look at her disapprovingly.

"And not at all like a drunken giraffe," he tutted. She looked suitably embarrassed, and he was about to go when something clicked in his brain.

"Hang on. You know a giraffe but not chocolate cake?"

Ona frowned, looking confused and a little worried about this line of enquiry. "Well… yes. Is that important?"

"Kin Ona, that is _very _important. What kind of civilised planet knows a giraffe but not a chocolate cake?"

"Um… ours?"

"Exactly," he said, pointing an emphatic finger in her face. "But, first thing's first, I'm off to the Noc territory. See you later."

The Doctor took two steps towards the building before turning back to Ona and adding, "…hopefully."

That said, he started running again, charging straight for a lift. He pressed for the top floor, prepping the sonic screwdriver as he ascended. It needed to be on the correct setting or this was going to go pear shaped very quickly. And he hated pears. Or at least his old taste buds did, maybe he would like them now.

The light lift music didn't do much to calm him down as he went up and up, his mind swimming with thoughts about giraffes and chocolate cake and Daleks and that maybe, just maybe if he tried dipping bananas _and _fish fingers in custard he might invent the greatest food in the universe and Oods and chanting children and whether Amy was all right…

Never let it be said that he didn't know how to prioritise his thoughts.

The lift dinged, and he stepped out onto the roof. Screwdriver in the air, he detected the incoming Daleks. He walked to the far side of the roof and turned around. He put the screwdriver between his teeth and fastened his jacket buttons - didn't want his belongings flying everywhere when he tried this.

He saw them coming and started running for the ledge. Hopefully he had timed this right. He _was _a Time Lord, this type of thing should be his forte, surely. Timing, that is, not the 'leaping onto Daleks from rooftops' thing.

The Doctor reached the ledge as the row of three Daleks swooped past. He kicked off, arms out in a spread eagle as he flew through the air, finally colliding with one of the Daleks. His impact didn't do much to throw it off course; it didn't even acknowledge he was there.

Yanking himself up so he was hugging the Dalek from behind, the Doctor grabbed the sonic screwdriver from his teeth and got to work, hoping that his suspicion about their being older Daleks held true. He hadn't seen Daleks like this since the invasion of Earth. When he had left Susan behind, only wishing for her happiness.

The Dalek jolted, and he clung tighter. Yes, because this was the perfect time to get all nostalgic and melancholy.

But the Daleks from the invasion of Earth weren't as durable as the more recent iterations - the Time War had seen some vast improvements - and so something simple would do. Something that wasn't possible back in the day, something he hadn't learned until much later and could never put into practice…

Screwdriver pressed against the metal plating of the Dalek's base, the Doctor reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. He leapt to the next Dalek as the magnetic field that held the plating together reversed, the previous Dalek literally falling to pieces as every part of it repelled the other. After a sharp left turn around a building, the Doctor repeated the process, demolishing the second Dalek before landing on the third.

"Just call me Abslom Daak," he said breathlessly.

"_YOU WILL STOP."_

He smiled. "You know, I thought you were going to say that."

This time, rather than reverse the polarity of the entire Dalek, the Doctor removed a single plate and dove his hand inside.

"Ooo, that's cold, why is that- OW, sizzling - come on, where are you, should be a big round thing with nozzles - is that cheese? Woah, _that _shouldn't be wet - YES, there you are!"

Control circuits. Wonderful things, quickly phased out as the Daleks evolved and their technology advanced, but the time period these Daleks were from, the controls were pretty simplified.

"_YOU WILL STOP."_

"Thanks, maybe later," the Doctor countered, shifting the control matrix and sending the Dalek careening towards Noc territory. Hopefully Amy and the others wouldn't be hard to find - he was fairly sure she would be making some sort of noise, shouting and hitting people and so on.

She was a very angry girl when he thought about it.

* * *

Amy was an angry girl at the moment, but tried not to let it show. The thick mud around her feet made that rather difficult however, giving her the appearance of stomping like a petulant child. Though she probably would be doing that anyway.

The pistol being poked into the small of her back didn't help, and she glowered over her shoulder at the soldier.

"Do you mind? I'm already walking, what more do you want?"

To her pride, the soldier looked a little taken aback by the outburst, but responded with another jab of the gun. At the back of the queue of prisoners, Trey looked ready to swing for him, and Amy wished that he would. She realised that she had never seen the soldiers actually _use _the guns. They stole them from the expedition, which was what? Fifteen years ago?

And they wouldn't know how to maintain them, so wouldn't guns get a bit ineffective after fifteen years?

Amy's heart rate jumped as she seriously considered her next course of action. They didn't have handcuffs for them, they just had their hands in the air. There were four soldiers for three of them, but Amy was fairly confident that Trey could take two people at once, he was a big boy. Though she wasn't sure if Mas would get involved in fisticuffs; all talk, that one.

They passed the TARDIS, still parked beside the prison. There were two guards stood at the doors. Amy sighed. So much for that plan. Though plan _was _a bit generous, considering it was just a surprise punch-up. Gene Hunt, she was not.

"Oh, you are kidding me," she moaned, rolling her eyes. "The _same _prison cell? Just shoot me now…"

She pointed a warning finger at the soldier behind her. "_Not _literally, please…"

From around the corner, she could hear the heavy metal door at the entrance slam open, and the soldiers froze. Confused, Amy glanced between the soldiers and the prison.

"What?"

She looked back to the prison and saw someone walk around the corner. Well, some_thing. _A pale bald head with fleshy, dangling… things coming from where the nose and mouth would be, and holding a white orb in its' hand.

"_You will stop,"_ it said, sounding rather polite about it.

Turning, Amy saw another walking from the other side of the prison. The soldiers, well and truly panicking by this point, had all but forgotten about Amy and the others.

The creatures' eyes suddenly became a glowing bright red before they leapt, snarling and frothing. Amy ran to the TARDIS and thought for the first time that she really needed a key. As it was, she, Mas and Trey took refuge behind it, peering around the side like Scooby Doo and the gang. Though what they were watching was a little less Scooby Doo and more Aliens.

Whatever they were, the creatures made quick work of the soldiers, their pistols useless. Amy was about to be smug about her prediction coming true when she noticed the alien things heading in their direction.

"Um," Amy said, pointing over her shoulder, "we should probably…"

They started backing up when Trey suddenly stopped, causing a bit of a domino effect as they bumped into each other. Amy whirled around. There was another one there, red eyes almost hypnotic up close. They backed out into the open, and Amy saw the other two creatures closing in on them.

"_You will stop."_

"All right, I'm listening," she announced, taking a page out of the Doctor's book. "Stop what?"

"_You will stop."_

"…right, but stop what?"

"_You will stop."_

"Not helping!" she shouted, getting frustrated that she was going to die absolutely clueless. "Stop what?"

"_You will stop."_

"Oh, for the love of-" she stopped herself, putting up a hand. "Can you hear that?"

Mas blinked when he realised she was talking to him. "Hear what?"

"That noise."

"What noise?"

"_That _noise!" she shouted, finger pointing in the air. A whine. No, not a whine. Like someone shouting. Someone shouting…

"GERONIMO!"

The creatures hadn't noticed the noise, or the Doctor swooping in from the sky, hugging a…

"Is that a Dalek?" she shouted, her head whipping around with Mas and Trey's as they followed the Doctor's trajectory, sweeping in front of the monsters approaching them before looping around in the sky and coming to a halt just above them.

He was still shouting 'Geronimo' as he brought the Dalek down for a soft landing between them and the creatures, the 'oh' sound fading away as he touched down. Looking so very pleased with himself, the Doctor hopped off the Dalek and patted it like a dog.

"Good Dalek." Still smirking away, the Doctor gave her a happy nod. "So, how are you lot doing? Having a good time?"

She nodded over his shoulder, and he whirled around to face the alien things.

"Ah, yes, you're here as well, lovely, hello, I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor, what are they?"

"They're Ood," he said over his shoulder. "Apparently, anyway."

"Ood?"

"Yes, Ood. Why does everybody have such a hard time with this? Ood."

"_You will stop."_

Growling loudly in frustration, the Doctor shook his hands in front of him as he shouted at the Ood.

"Stop _what_? Now, admittedly I'm amazing and clever, but even I can't stop something _if I don't know what it is_."

The Ood tilted its' head to the side as though trying to understand. _"You will stop."_

They took a step forward, and Amy took an instinctive step back with the others. The Doctor stood his ground, holding one scrunched up hand in front of his chest in that 'old professor' way he did.

"All right then," he said slowly, unsurely. "I will."

The creatures stopped, stared for a few moments, then turned and walked away. They kept on going until they had walked behind the prison, out of sight.

Amy released the breath she hadn't realised she was holding, and the others seemed to do the same.

The Doctor turned to face them, smiling but still confused. "Am I the only one who can't believe that worked?"

"So they were talking to you?" Trey asked, having found his voice rather quickly. Mas seemed at a loss for words.

"Seems so, yeah…"

"What did you do?" Amy asked tiredly, hands on hips.

"Nothing," he said defensively, before adding quietly, "No more than usual, anyway."

Avoiding eye contact, he whipped out the sonic screwdriver and swished it about in the air. He looked at the results with a deep scowl.

"Wait, what?"

"What?" she asked, coming up beside him. But he was off, running around the prison. Trainers sucking into the mud, she struggled to keep up, and almost bumped into his still form on the other side. He was looking around, bewildered.

Amy walked up next to him and looked around the barren landscape. "Where did they go?"

"Nowhere." He checked the screwdriver again, looking frustrated. "They're just gone."

"W… how?"

"Good question, don't know," he said loudly, pointing a finger over his shoulder.

Shaking her head, Amy struggled to decide what to ask first. "And did you just ride in on a Dalek?"

"Yes, I ride Daleks now. Riding Daleks is cool. But an old Dalek. Or something that wants us to think it's an old Dalek, anyway," he murmured, speaking to himself more than her. The Doctor suddenly dropped into a squatting position, screwdriver pointed downwards in his hand like he was going to stab it into the ground.

She bent forward to see what he was doing, hands on her knees. "What, did they dig their way out?"

"Not picking anything up, so, no, it's just mud." He got up and flicked the screwdriver off, but still fidgeted with it in one hand.

"So…" she said slyly, moving up beside him. "Did you find anything out? Tremors interesting?"

"No, the tremors were just big giant slug worm things," he said dejectedly, like a disappointed child with a Christmas present he didn't really want.

"Big giant slug worms?"

"Yeah." He looked at her, holding his hands out to either side like a proud fisherman. "Really big."

Something beeped, and they both frowned at each other. The Doctor looked down to the sonic screwdriver, and Amy kept her eyes on it as he brought it up to his face.

"_Doctor?"_

It was a female voice.

"I didn't know your screwdriver could talk," she said, whispering while not being entirely sure why.

"It's not the screwdriver," he replied, frantically putting it away and scrambling around in his pockets. Finally he came out with the tracking device Amy had seen Trey give to Ona before they had split up.

He smiled in that satisfied way he did when he thought he knew everything. "Hello, Ona, that was fast. Did Chocolate Cake give you the frequency?"

Confused, Amy mouthed 'Chocolate Cake' to the Doctor, who waved it down so he could listen to what Ona was saying.

"_I had to force it out of him, yes, but Doctor, you need to get out of there."_

Amy and the Doctor exchanged a look, and she noted that his expression had dropped from 'smug' to 'heavy brow of concern' territory.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"_It's because of all the Daleks and the Oods and children chanting-"_

"Ona, _what's wrong_?"

"_The council are planning a missile strike on the Nocs."_

A sudden wave of dizziness came over Amy as she looked at the Doctor. She was fairly sure her eyes were bulging out of her head.

Not that he looked much better. "Sorry, they're what?"

"_They think it's the Nocs, so they're going to fire missiles."_

"At what? They don't know anything about the Nocs, there are no targets, no-"

"_Everything, Doctor. They're going to fire missiles at everything."_

"And just hope they hit something, they're the military, what kind of strategy is that? Only an idiot would - just answered my own question - Ona, go to the Council Chambers and wait for us." He switched off the communicator and strode past Amy, once more leaving her struggling to keep up.

"So what?" she asked breathlessly, her foot slipping on the mud. "You're going back there to stop them?"

"Nope, _I'm _going to the Palace," he announced, then waved a finger over his shoulder. "_You're _going to stop them."

"I'm _what?"_

They approached Mas and Trey, who were warily inspecting the inert Dalek, though neither dared get too close. With a sudden burst of energy and speed, Amy managed to overtake the Doctor before he could reach them, pressing a hand to his chest.

"You want _me _to stop missiles from launching? What am I supposed to do, fly the Dalek at them?"

The Doctor avoided eye contact as he opened his mouth, then shut it again, looking around guiltily.

"You want me to fly the Dalek at them," she said, a little aghast.

"No," he protested, rolling his eyes. "You're flying the Dalek to the city with Mas and Trey. Then you're going to _talk _the council out of firing the missiles. See? Much more reasonable."

"Oh yeah, last time I spoke to a political party about missile strikes it went down a treat!" she cried, throwing her arms in the air. "Besides, I'm human, and I'm not allowed, remember? I'm not even here, as far as most of them are concerned."

"Who's firing missiles?" Mas asked, putting a nervous hand in the air.

"Your people, they think the Nocs are attacking, so they're aiming for everything. Shut up, just a minute," the Doctor said quickly, than tapped his finger against his lips in thought. Staring at Amy, he looked reluctant to speak, knowing she wouldn't like what he was about to say. Almost disgusted, she would even say.

He put his hands up in front of him, cautiously reaching towards her face. "Okay, now, don't get the wrong idea with this."

She backed up as he approached. "Whoa, why?"

"Look, they use DNA scanners at the entrance of the Council Chambers, so the only way you're going to gain access is if your DNA is… masked."

"'Masked'?

"Yes, and look, there are more thorough ways of doing this, but this is the most efficient, and doesn't mean a thing. There is no meaning. Meaning is completely absent from this thing. So don't go thinking this means any…thing. Okay?"

"Um…" She squinted at him. This was weird, even for him. "…okay…"

"What did I just say?"

"That this doesn't mean anything."

He nodded, satisfied, though his eyes were still wide as she had ever seen them. "All right, good. Here we go."

That was when he grabbed her face with both hands and yanked her into a long, lingering kiss. Before she even had a chance to think about whether tongue would be appropriate, he had withdrawn, their lips smacking as they popped apart.

She just stared at him, her mouth and pretty much every other part of her body still tingling. The Doctor, meanwhile, looked like he was waiting for a volcano to erupt.

"So…" she said lightly, her voice shaking a little. She took a moment to clear her throat. "…what was that?"

"Genetic transfer." He was a bit breathless, which she couldn't entirely blame him for. "You've got some Time Lord DNA now. Just temporary, but it'll last long enough to confuse the scanners."

"Right…"

"You all right?"

"Yes."

"You don't look all right."

"I'm fine."

"Oh, good." With a clap of the hands, he got back to Mas and Trey. "Right, you two, go with Amy, help her talk some sense into the Council. No missiles today, please. Now, flying the Dalek. There's a-"

"No, no!" Amy shouted, plunging in between them. "No male drivers please, last bloke who I let drive the car crashed it into a tree."

"Knowing him, I can believe it," the Doctor muttered, sharing a private smile with her that made her think she should know what he was talking about. Then his face dropped, as though realising he had done something terrible.

But then she thought about it, and found she couldn't remember the bloke she had been talking about. The incident itself was disappearing from her mind as she tried to think about it. The Doctor, seeing this, bolted over to the Dalek, explaining the controls with extra vigour.

"Now, there's a reflex orb inside, very complicated design, but simple to use. Just tilt it in the direction you want to go. Squeeze the orb to go faster, relax your grip to go slower, and that's about it, all you need to know about flying your own Dalek!"

Amy was about to bring it up as the Doctor walked over to her, but when she thought about it, she couldn't remember what she was about to bring up. It was something important. Something she said, something the Doctor did…?

"All right," he said quietly, with as reassuring a smile as he could manage, "time to go."

"Right… right, yeah."

"You okay?"

"Mm-hm," she mumbled, preoccupied as she walked to the Dalek. She blinked it away once she was stood in front of Trey and Mas. "All right, boys, let's go for a Dalek ride!"

Trey shook his head. "Not me. I'm going with the Doctor."

"No, no, no, no!" the Doctor shouted, waving his hands madly as he trod between them, pushing his face almost into Trey's. "Bad idea, bad idea, _bad idea. _I don't know what I'm going to find in this Palace, but whatever it is has massive psychic abilities that could kill you in an instant."

"So could her driving," Trey said simply, nodding at Amy.

She gaped at him, vehement. "Beg your pardon!"

"It's a good point," the Doctor added quietly.

Amy jabbed an irritated finger at him. "_You_ can't talk about bad driving, you leave the brakes on."

"No offence," Trey interjected to Amy, though he looked perfectly calm doing so. "And besides, there's no way three of us could fit on that thing."

The Doctor opened his mouth to object, then clammed it shut again. "Understandable. I wouldn't want to be the first person killed falling off a Dalek."

"Not that you _would_," Amy insisted, throwing as huffy a look as she could manage in Trey's direction.

"So, Amy and Mas, get going and get talking. Just be careful, they know a giraffe but not chocolate cake."

Mas looked from the Doctor to Amy incredibly quickly before asking, quite simply, "What?"

"It'll make sense later," she assured him, clambering on to one side of the Dalek. "Or not, it's hard to tell with some of the stuff he comes out with."

She reached inside the Dalek and pulled up the orb. The Dalek complied, hovering up into the air.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"This won't turn around and exterminate me, right?"

The quite frankly epic pause that followed didn't make her feel any better. Nor did the grin that spread over the Doctor's more than slightly worried face.

"Yes, that's the stuff. Keep positive, Pond," he enthused, tapping a finger in her direction.

She looked over at Mas and shrugged. Amy took them up and Mas clung tighter to the Dalek. A big grin that surely matched the Doctor's spread over her face, and she whooped as she took the Dalek careening off into the sky.

"Drive safely, and watch out for speed cameras!" the Doctor shouted.

Amy couldn't stop the grin now as the wind blasted through her hair. It was nice to know that, even with missiles coming, there were still some things to enjoy.

* * *

(A/N: It recently dawned that when I think 'the Doctor', it is now Matt Smith I see in my mind's eye instead of David Tennant. A huge day - my Doctor mind has moved on! Not sure if I should be happy or sad.

Anyway, thanks for the reviews, everyone, keep them up!)


	7. The Palace

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Six: The Palace**_

Trey's legs ached as they approached. He had been trudging back and forth over this uneven ground for the better part of a day, first following Mas and Ona, then escorting Amy, and now pursuing the Doctor to 'the Palace', now towering up above them.

Despite having never been to the Noc territory before, the Time Lord had seemed remarkably certain of where he was going. He hadn't even used the sonic screwdriver, just what he called 'a psychic echo'. He continued going on about psychic this and that, before he flashed a blank piece of paper in his face and raced off again, like a child about to receive a fantastic present.

Then the Doctor had shouted incoherently and jumped up and down on the spot, pointing to some point on the horizon. Following his finger, Trey had spotted a pointy… thing in the distance, all jagged edges and spires. Which was where they were now.

It looked like a fallen star.

"This is the Palace?" the Doctor asked, though he only really seemed to be talking to himself.

"What is it?" Trey asked breathlessly. It was enormous, like a skyscraper that had toppled on its' side, except just as tall going up.

"Not sure," the Doctor said, pressing two fingers to his temple distractedly, "Space station, space cruiser? Space something, anyway."

"Like your ship?"

He frowned and shook his head. "No, probably not."

Trey tilted his head to better see the Doctor's face. "Are you all right?"

"Hm? Oh, fine, just a headache. A headache," he muttered distractedly, "coming from here. Ah, this way!"

Trey's eyes stayed on the Palace for a few moments before he managed to drag them over to the Doctor. Who wasn't there. He did a quick double glance to where the Doctor had been before a stab of panic hit him.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

Trey frowned, following the voice off to the right. "Where are you?"

"At the entrance."

He moved around a wedge of metal that seemed to have exploded out from the wall and found the Doctor staring up at the Palace.

"What makes you think this is the entrance?"

Staring at him, the Doctor pointed straight ahead. Moving further around, Trey saw that the Doctor was in front of a gaping hole in the wall.

"I think the expedition cut it."

This earned another double glance from Trey, who was trying his best not to stare into the dark abyss in front of him.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, for a start, this thing, whatever it is, crashed. But _this_ is a distinct cut. And when you compare the damage from the crash to the hole…" He strode past and dropped to his belly, licking a burnt bit of metal near the ground, then licked the hole in the wall.

"…yes! Very distinct, very new, and very much a laser." The Doctor turned to face him, smiling widely. "Off we go, into the unknown. Are you enjoying yourself yet?"

Without waiting for a reply, the Doctor clambered inside, only having to take one step up. He walked forward and stopped before whirling on the spot, finger held up in the air unsurely. Finally, he came to a halt facing left, jabbing the digit forward like a teacher pleased with a pupil's answer.

Trey was about to follow. He was ready, he really was. But then, suddenly, in the space between one instant and the next, he was terrified. A fear he had never felt before, clinging to his heart, to his bones, freezing him in place.

"Trey?" the Doctor's voice echoed, booming out from the chamber within. "You coming?"

"Uh…" His voice shook, and he swallowed. "I… uh…"

"Trey?" the Doctor said again, his head popping back into the entrance. Spotting Trey's demeanour, the Doctor rushed over, bending forward to look him in the eye.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm…" he frowned, confused and angry with himself. "…I'm scared."

"Oh," the Doctor laughed, "is that all? We're all scared, Trey. Scared is good, scared keeps you alive. Mostly."

"Not scared like this," Trey insisted, shaking his head.

The Doctor's amused smile tweaked slightly, and he started to search Trey's eyes in earnest. "What makes you say that? What's different?"

"I don't know. This happened before, when Amy stepped over the border."

"Did it really?"

Trey nodded.

"And just now when I stepped in here?"

"Yes."

His eyes flickered over Trey's shoulder, staring at something that seemed to excite him quite a bit. "Just now, just now when I stepped… now, let's see, everybody on the planet gets a severe case of heebie-jeebies when someone goes somewhere or does something that threatens this… thing, this… whatever it is that's giving me this BLOODY HEADACHE-" he cried, throwing a scowl back into the Palace before resuming - "but when it's someone not from this planet, outside the sphere of influence, we get the Daleks and the Ood and chanting children telling us to stop. Makes sense."

"How does that make sense?"

"Because, Trey, what is the mind's way of telling us to stop? What does the mind do when we're about to do something dangerous? It makes us afraid. Instinctively, instantly. Fear, like the kind that's stopping you right now."

"And something is making me feel this?"

Initially hesitant to answer, the Doctor quietly said, "Yes."

"…why?"

"Because it's threatened by you, your people. And by Amy. And definitely by me," he said, standing to his full height and looking into the Palace. "That psychic paper I was telling you about picked up the pain and fear coming from this thing. The TARDIS translated it, but I didn't recognise the original language. Even then, the words were unintelligible, like someone trying to spell a scream. I could sense the fear and the pain and came to help…"

He sighed. "…but it didn't want anyone to come here. It wasn't asking for help, it was just… afraid. Afraid and in pain."

"So…" Trey swallowed. "What are you going to do?"

"…I have to find it and stop it. This thing is manipulating your people telepathically, pushing you to war. Fear can push people to anything, Trey. Some of the worst crimes in the history of the universe were committed because of fear. Fear of loneliness, fear of death, fear of ducks, fear of baked beans… I hate baked beans."

Trey frowned, distracted from the Palace. "What's a duck?"

The Doctor's entire face dropped. "You are having a giraffe."

"So… giraffes are like ducks?"

"No, they're not, they… no chocolate cake, no ducks, but you know giraffes. How is that possible?" he muttered to himself, searching Trey's eyes again before leaping to his feet. "Right, come on Trey, can't stand around here giving into fright. The only thing to fear, and so on."

"What?"

"Look, just, come on," he said impatiently, summoning him on as he walked into the Palace.

"I can't."

"Yes you can. Just think of something else, something stronger than the fear."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know!" he shouted, shaking his hands in the air, frustrated. "Discovering the unknown, spirit of adventure! Aren't you curious to see what's causing all of this?"

"Well… no."

The Doctor tilted his head to the side like a curious dog. "Really? Then why did you come with me?"

"I mean… _yes_, I want to find out what's causing this. But I'm not interested in discovering the unknown. That's Mas' thing."

A slightly amused smile danced across the Doctor's features, and Trey found himself getting annoyed.

"So why _do_ you want to find it?" the Doctor asked slyly, moving in close to his face.

"To… to stop it."

"And why do you want to stop it?"

"Because I need to protect-!" The words came bursting out of him, fuelled by anger, and he closed his mouth quickly.

"Protect… what, Trey?"

He sighed, avoiding the Doctor's gaze. "Ona."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Ona!" he shouted, grabbing the Doctor by the lapel of his jacket. "I need to protect Ona! Is that what you wanted?"

"It's not about what I want," he replied, smiling. "It's about what you _need _to conquer your fear. Tell me Trey, how are you feeling?"

His breathing heavy, Trey stared at the Doctor, releasing his jacket. "Angry."

"But not afraid."

"No."

"Good!" He shouted, bouncing back upright. "And now you've got another motivation to follow me in; whacking this smug smirk off my face."

With that, the Doctor sauntered off into the Palace again, heading off to the right. He vanished for a few moments before reappearing and walking to the left. Smiling and shaking his head, Trey clambered inside, trying to keep his reason for being there at the forefront of his mind.

Light reflected off the corridor walls surprisingly well, and Trey managed to follow the Doctor around a few bends before the natural light faded away, replaced by the bright green hue of the sonic screwdriver. Unsure hands extended out, Trey did his best not to walk into the walls as he followed the Doctor to the end of the corridor and into a large chamber.

The light from the screwdriver struggled to fill the room until Trey saw it point off to the left. A thin tube of light that extended out of the floor to about knee height activated, spreading white light around the room.

"They look like they were planted here… must have been left here by the expedition. Batteries were a little flat after all this time, just needed a little recharging," the Doctor said, pointing the screwdriver to different corners of the room and activating a light in each one.

Trey spotted something that took up the entire far wall, directly behind the Doctor. A square glass tank, an eerie blue mist filling it. Three large black objects were inside. They resembled beaked animals, but the mist obscured much of them.

"Doctor…"

"Doesn't seem to be much else here, why did they bother to light up this place?"

"I think it might have been because of that," he said, pointing a shaking finger across the room.

Surprised, the Doctor looked first at him, then whirled on the spot to face whatever it was.

"Ah. You must be what's giving me the headache. Hello. I'm the Doctor."

* * *

Flying a Dalek was not as fun as Amy had first anticipated. She couldn't believe she was wishing for seatbelts (how boring), but the lack of anything to hang onto except a plunger didn't make her feel very secure. Mas had shown his usual level of manly courage and taken to latching onto her arm for safety. Every time she _occasionally _let the Dalek dip to the side, Mas yelped like a little girl and squeezed even tighter, threatening to pull both of them to the ground that was moving _very _fast beneath them. She was just glad that she had decided to keep the Dalek close to the ground as they travelled.

Which was why she breathed a fairly obvious sigh of relief as they entered the city. The streets were empty, and the Dalek's floating… engine… thing hummed all around them as they whizzed along. She pulled the orb back and slowed them down.

"Mas?"

He glanced at her but kept his eyes on the ground, as though that would stop him falling. "Yes?"

"Where are the Council Chambers?"

"We took you there already, remember?"

"Yeah, but it was a complicated route and you were talking and distracting me at the time and then I wasn't even allowed inside, so would it _kill you _to just direct me?"

Suitably chastened, Mas kept his eyes on the ground and grumbled, "Left."

They swerved dangerously through several corners and streets before three soldiers burst out of what Amy recognised as the Council Chambers, rifles aimed. Panicking, Amy and Mas leapt from the Dalek, hitting the ground running and stumbling along because of it. Amy managed to skid to a halt, grabbing Mas by the shoulders to stop him from planting his face on the road. The Dalek came to a gradual halt further down the street.

"Woah, woah, woah," Amy said, panicking with her hands up. "No guns, don't shoot please!"

"Mas?"

It was Ona, rushing out of the building. She waved down the soldiers, and they reluctantly lowered their weapons. She rushed to embrace her brother, who just looked embarrassed by the contact.

Frowning, Ona pulled herself out of the hug and peeked over their shoulders.

"Where's the Doctor? Is he with you?"

"Yes, hello," Amy said tiredly, giving an irritated wave. "I'm here, I can help…"

Ona seemed a little taken aback by that, and tried to back-pedal. "Oh no, I'm not saying that you _couldn't_, I just… can you even go inside the Council Chambers?"

Waggling her eyebrows, Amy smiled. "Oh yeah. I've got Time Lord DNA in me now." Her smile vanished awkwardly. "And I didn't mean thatlike it sounded." She avoided eye contact as she walked to the Council Chambers.

She stopped at the doorway and scrunched her eyes shut, expecting loud alarms and bullets in the back from the soldiers behind her as she stepped through the scanners.

But nothing. Smiling back at the others, she strode far more confidently through the echoing lobby towards the grand entrance to what she assumed was the Chambers. Two security guards waited there for her, and didn't seem in the mood to get out of the way.

Amy looked over her shoulder. "Could someone…?"

Ona was already on the way, and Amy couldn't help but be impressed. Spend a quarter of a day with the Doctor, and a quiet little mouse becomes a bit of a lion.

"I'm Kin Ona, and I need to speak to Kin Shriner, my father."

The guards looked at each other, before the bigger of the two answered, "He's busy."

"Tell him it's urgent."

"He's. _Busy."_

Her shoulders slumping, Ona looked back to Mas for support, awkwardly jerking her head to get his attention. Mas, meanwhile, did his best to avoid looking at her, focusing on some dirt on the front of his jacket.

Amy kicked him in the rear, sending him tumbling forward and eventually alongside Ona. After shooting an admittedly deserved glare back at Amy, Mas turned back to the guards, hands behind his back officiously. Ona backed up to stand beside Amy.

"I'm Kin Mas. Get my father out here now."

Visibly frustrated, the guards seemed to take a simultaneous deep breath before the smaller man disappeared through the doors.

Amy tilted her head towards Ona while keeping her eyes on the door. "Men get more done than women around here, I take it?"

"That," she sighed, "and Mas is the favourite."

"Ah."

There was only a few moments wait before their father emerged, looking harassed and not exactly pleased to see his kids at the moment.

"What is it?" he almost spat, his eyes darting between his children before catching sight of Amy. "Who are you?"

"Amy Pond, a pleasure to meet you," she said as officiously as possible, putting her hand out.

Their father made no move to take the hand, and Amy slowly withdrew it.

"I'm with the Doctor."

"Human?" he asked, eyes suspicious.

She scrunched up her face and waved a dismissive hand. "What? No. Pffft, what? That's crazy. And disgusting. Humans are disgusting. Right? I heard that or… read that somewhere. No, sir, I…" she raised her hand in the air, twisting her hand around like she was holding an imaginary Yorick skull, "…am a Time Lord."

The theatrics didn't impress him as much as Amy had intended. "_You're _a Time Lord."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes. A Time Lord from the planet…" her eyes bulged as she realised the Doctor had never told her the name of his home planet. "Time-o… Lord…ia."

Looking increasingly tired, Shriner sighed. "What do you want?"

Trying not to look too relieved, Amy nodded. "Yeah, good point, let's get to it. You need to stop those missiles."

"The Nocs are attacking us, we have to strike back before we're all wiped out."

"But they're not attacking anymore, are they?"

"That was just the first wave."

"Yeah, but the Nocs aren't exactly splitting the atom. I mean, you went there years ago, right? You've met them, you know they couldn't make Daleks and Odd… Ood… whatever."

Shriner didn't say anything; he just stared at Amy. Bits and pieces connected together in Amy's head, and for a moment she thought she knew what it felt like to be the Doctor when he solved the puzzle.

"…unless you found something when you were there. Something you didn't tell anyone about, eh?"

"I think you should-"

"The Palace, maybe?"

Everything went quiet. Shriner's expression darkened considerably, and Amy did her best to maintain her confident face. The guards behind Shriner exchanged confused looks, and Shriner started to panic, if only a little.

"You need to leave," he said quickly, grabbing her arm and rushing her towards the door.

"You saw it, didn't you?" she continued, quieter this time. "The Palace. What is it? The Doctor's heading there with Trey right now."

Shriner stopped. "They're _what?"_

"They're going to the Palace. They're in Noc territory right now. Seriously, that's why you can't fire the missiles yet."

He looked torn between the door and the Council Chambers, and finally made his choice by shoving her towards the door and storming off to the chambers.

"Get out, or I will have the guards escort you," he announced, his voice echoing around the lobby.

"No!" she protested, stomping after him. "You've got to stop those missiles or you're going to kill the Doctor and Trey!"

"It's them or the entire city. What would you choose?"

"But no-one's attacking now, what's the harm in waiting?"

"Guards," Shriner muttered, slipping through them and into the Council Chambers.

"Just wait! You can't do this!"

Big and Bigger latched their arms underneath hers and lifted her from the ground, walking effortlessly to the exit. She kicked and thrashed as much as she could manage. Mas and Ona just looked on awkwardly, eventually following with their heads bowed sheepishly.

"Get off, get off!"

They reached the doors, and alarms promptly exploded into life. Everyone froze, including the guards, who immediately released her as though burned. The soldiers, who had been waiting outside rather patiently, instantly raised up their weapons, pointing them at her.

Hands in the air, Amy looked to Ona and Mas for support.

"What's going on?"

"You've, uh…" Mas swallowed. "You've just registered as human. They'll probably take you into custody now."

Speechless for a moment, Amy stamped a furious foot on the ground. "Bloody Doctor and his useless DNA!"

* * *

Kin Shriner burst into missile launch control, thundering down the steps beside the long desks. Ten people on each row, all of them staring at him as he made his way to the General at the bottom of the room, overlooking their control screens.

"We need to launch now," he ordered with as much authority as possible.

The General gave him a cursory glance. "Ah, Kin Shriner. Wasn't expecting to see you-"

"General. We need to launch those missiles, _now_."

"We're still waiting on confirmation from the Council," he said casually, still not giving him the time of day.

Frustrated, Shriner grabbed him by the arm and twisted him around to look at him. "You need to launch, _now_," he hissed. "If you wait for the Council it'll be too late."

"Why?" he asked quietly, shrugging off the hand. "What do you know?"

"You remember that visitor who arrived today? The Doctor?"

"The alien, yes, I heard about that."

"Well, he's in Noc territory right now, consorting with the enemy. He had free reign of the city, who knows what he's telling them right now?"

The General glanced about the room before taking Shriner aside. "And you're sure about this?"

"An associate of his just tried to convince me to halt the missile strike. Why else would the Doctor send someone? If it was truly important, why not come himself? And now it turns out she's a human. We're taking her for interrogation now, but who knows what damage the Doctor has already done."

The General nodded, his eyes becoming a little more frantic. "You're right. We need to attack now before they destroy us all."

He whirled around on the spot and started barking orders. Taken aback by the sudden call to action, the technicians and soldiers nearly fell over themselves as they mobilised.

Kin Shriner smiled, blowing out a relieved, shaky breath. No-one would see the Palace, or whatever it was that drove his closest friend to suicide and drove another man mad. He wasn't waiting around to find out what secrets and dangers the Doctor could find and use against them. He _wouldn't_. His family was depending on him.

* * *

(A/N: Thanks for the reviews, everyone, don't stop now!)


	8. Information

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Seven: Information**_

The Doctor kept a respectful distance from the creature, screwdriver held loosely by his side. Trey was silent, probably frozen with the same fear that had gripped him outside the ship. Or space station. It was too big to be a ship, really. Although the Doctor _had _seen some colossal ships in his time. Which was considerable.

"So," he said slowly, trying to spot some indicator through the blue mist of what he was looking at, "anything to say for yourself?

The voice was male, dull, and lifeless, yet still managed to be menacing. It vibrated through the metal plating of the floor, coming from unseen speakers.

"_You will stop."_

He sighed. "Are we really going to start this again?"

"_You will stop."_

"That's all you have to say?"

"_You will stop."_

"You're sure about that? I can't change your mind?"

"_You will-"_

"'You will stop', yes, I heard you the first time, which was, incidentally, about twenty times ago. I can only assume that you wanted me to stop so that I wouldn't come here and find you. Which worked brilliantly, by the way. But, I'm here now. You might as well talk to me." He walked up closer, hands behind his back as he searched for something to make eye contact with.

"Eh?" he asked quietly, gently. No need to scare it. "What do you think? A bit of back and forth, banter, a nice little chat over a pot of tea. Unless you don't like tea, in which case I apologise, I'm never sure what blue mist creatures like to drink."

It was silent. He couldn't even hear it breathing.

"So? What do you say?"

With a monstrous screech, the creature started thrashing around wildly, vomiting yellow-green liquid across the glass. Trey let out an incoherent, short roar of shock. The Doctor took a few steps back as those familiar three words once again reverberated through the chamber.

"_You will stop."_

Jaw set, the Doctor glowered up at the creature, waving his finger around in front of him as he angrily searched for the words. "All right. I'm losing my patience now. Either talk to me, or I'm going to find out for myself."

"_You will stop."_

"Right, that's it!" he declared, shooting the sonic screwdriver up into the air. "I'm going to explore now."

He flicked the switch and started scanning for a computer terminal, _something _that would have information on it. The beeping led him to the left, towards a part of the wall just next to a darkened corridor. The Doctor made his way over.

"_You will stop."_

"Then stop me!" The Doctor shouted, diverting from his path to storm straight up to the tank. "You have Daleks and Ood! You can shoot me, electrocute me, exterminate me! You have the power to stop me, so do it."

"Doctor…"

He looked over at Trey, who was clearly trying to fight down the urge to run away as fast as he could.

"Maybe…" he swallowed. "Maybe that's all it can say."

"Maybe," the Doctor conceded with a nod of the head, then turned back to the creature, "but I don't think so. Something that could create Daleks and Ood and control the minds of children wouldn't have a limited vocabulary. Unless…" His brain sparked, and he whirled on the spot to look at Trey again, eyes wide.

"Unless it was distracted with something else, something that was taking up all of its' attention, something it had to maintain, keep under control. A creature using children and Daleks and Oods and three words to keep everything at bay because it can't afford to step in directly _because_… something terrible would happen. Am I warm?" he asked, turning back to the creature.

"_You will stop."_

He smiled and walked to the terminal, screwdriver ahead of him as he spoke over his shoulder. "Now, I _knew _you were going to say that."

The sonic screwdriver removed the cover from the terminal, and the Doctor gave it a quick power boost - enough for him to have a look at the most recent activity logs, anyway. Screwdriver in his jacket pocket, the Doctor started working, finding the controls oddly familiar.

"Trey, could you come over here?"

Trey did so, though the Doctor couldn't help but note how the young man kept as much distance between him and the creature as was humanly possibly. Well, Diur-ly possible.

The Doctor smiled when he arrived and tapped a finger against the monitor. "Do you recognise this language?"

But his eyes were still on the creature. With a roll of the eyes, the Doctor reached over and turned Trey's head.

"Huh? What?"

"The language. Do you know it?"

"It, uh…" He glanced down at the Doctor's hand, which was squashing his cheeks together.

The Doctor released him, and Trey leant in further to get a better look. "It's the ancient language of my people. Some people say both the Nocs and Diurs used it originally. Why?"

"It's the same language this message came in," the Doctor said, flipping the psychic paper between his fingers. "It was translated by my ship, but I didn't recognise the original language."

"Oh. What, uh… does it say?" he asked, nodding at the screen.

"This place was some kind of lab. Whether that's the whole complex or just this room, I've no idea. Experiments were run on… children? Why children?"

"Can't you find out?"

The Doctor shook his head. "There's a lot of information missing or corrupted, I'm piecing this together from all the separate logs. It makes continual references to 'the children'. The experiments involved radiation focused on the brain… Oh, that's interesting. Survivors…"

"Survivors?"

"Yes, something about survivors here. Ah, the _children_ werethe survivors. Three children. The only ones showing even the remotest signs of brain activity from… the dead planet, the ravaged planet… they've got a lot of names for this planet, wherever it is."

"How did they die?"

"Hm? What?"

"The children. How did they die?"

"How do you know they're- oh, the initial death, before the experiments. Good question." After tapping away on the monitor for a few moments, the Doctor's head dropped and a frustrated breath escaped him.

"What?"

"The computer's blocking my searches. Not deliberately, it's just badly damaged." Something caught his eye, and he brought up the entry. "Oh, _but_… after the experiments the children were kept alive in stasis pods. Or their _bodies _were, at least. Their minds were left switched on, ticking over while the stasis kept them rejuvenated."

"So…" Trey looked around the chamber unsurely, nervously, "they could be in here, with us?"

"No, there isn't any power. Although that could have been redirected…" He brought out the sonic screwdriver again and scanned for any power sources.

The Doctor turned around on the spot to face the creature, and put the screwdriver away.

"Ah. Hello, children."

* * *

Finding Amy wasn't as difficult as Ona had been expecting. More difficult had been convincing the guards and the security system at the door that she absolutely _needed _to be here at her father's request. As she and Mas had ascended in the lift, she had prayed that they wouldn't call her father too soon. She needed a chance to make sure that Amy was all right.

And if she wasn't, then…

The muffled cries were what attracted their attention as they stepped off the elevator. Mas was the first to notice, and nodded his head down the corridor. They crept as quietly as they could manage towards the door. Pressing her ear to it along with Mas, Ona could just make out what they were saying. She didn't dare peek through the window at the top of the door, though Mas seemed to be edging his way up.

"Why aren't they asking any questions?" Ona whispered, and Mas looked at her like she was an idiot.

"They're using a mind probe."

"Oh. Right." Worried, she asked, "But aren't they dangerous?"

Mas nodded. "And painful. I can't believe the Doctor sent her here with such weak camouflage. What was he thinking?"

A cry came out from inside the room to confirm this, and Ona closed her eyes. "We need to stop this."

"I think using our father's name will only go so far."

Ona's lips became a thin line. He was right, of course; if they did anything too outrageous with Kin Shriner's name it would draw attention. Too much attention, especially when you were trying to sneak a human out of the building.

Mas brought a finger to his lips, and Ona pressed her ear to the door.

"Look, this woman seems to be important to him," someone said, a deep male voice. "His wife, the human seems to think." There was a pause as something else distracted them.

"The Doctor has a wife?" Mas whispered incredulously. Irritated, Ona waved her hand around in a gesture that meant 'be quiet'. He got the message, albeit a little sulkily.

"He _is _a Time Lord," the man all but gasped. "Look, that's the inside of his time ship."

A female, equally dour, responded. "I thought Time Lords were just legends."

"No, just old. And impossible. They could change their faces to cheat death; literally become a new person. Regeneration, if I remember correctly. Addles the brain, leaves them unstable…"

"Unstable and in league with the Nocs," the female finished. "We're in more danger than we thought."

"Not for long. I was just informed. The strike has begun."

Panicking, Ona looked up at Mas. He, too, was frozen, eyes staring blankly ahead as he processed what he had just heard.

"Really?" the female asked. "When?"

"They haven't launched yet, but the countdown has. The first wave is in ten minutes, and then every ten minutes until the Nocs are wiped out."

She grabbed Mas' arm. "We have to warn Trey. And the Doctor," she added quickly.

Mas didn't seem to notice her slip. "And how are we going to do that?"

"He's still got the communicator, we can track him on that. And if we can find that Dalek thing, we could fly it over to them-"

"No-no-no, no way. I'm not riding on that thing again, especially if you're driving."

Ona scowled. "Fine, don't come. You stay here and free Amy, _I'll _go find Trey and the Doctor."

Without any further discussion, Ona turned and ran for the elevator, Mas not far behind her.

"Free Amy?" he hissed as she stepped inside. "How am I supposed to-"

"Just-!" Ona pressed a hand to his chest and pushed him out of the way of the doors. "Figure it out, Mas. She's our friend, we need to help her."

A little crestfallen, Mas reluctantly nodded, eyes on the floor. As the doors closed, something occurred to Ona, and she lashed out with her arm to stop them.

"They have the ex-security director on the eleventh floor."

"Shorn?"

She nodded. "Maybe he can help."

"But… he's locked up as well, isn't he? That's _two _jailbreaks, Ona!"

All she offered was a shrug. "You always wanted more excitement. There you are."

His lip curled up in a humourless smile as he did a little sneer of a laugh, waving her away. The doors closed, and Ona tried to fight the tingling in her belly. Though she hadn't told Mas, she could feel herself getting more frightened by the minute. What was wrong with her? Why was she so scared?

Aside from the missiles that were firing at Trey… who she was now going to meet.

She shook it off as the lift reached ground floor. Purpose in her stride, she went to find the soldier the Doctor had nicknamed Chocolate Cake. She had seen him down here on her way in. Maybe some jostling and invoking of the Kin family name would help her get to that Dalek thing, wherever it was.

* * *

Trey tried to ignore the eerie tingle that travelled up his spine as the Doctor led the way down the corridor. His back to the creature, he still couldn't help but feel like it was watching him, waiting. Who knew what it could unleash if pushed too far?

Either the Doctor knew and wasn't worried, or didn't know and didn't care. Or he was just a madman.

"Doctor, should we be doing this? Maybe we should leave."

"Oh, come on Trey, not this again. The fear isn't from you, it's them, putting the fear in your mind, exaggerating it. Just think of Ona. Draw strength from her."

Closing his eyes, Trey pictured her in his mind. Her hair, her eyes, her gentle nature… he could still feel the monster watching him. But somehow, it didn't seem as severe, as haunting. It was just… there.

"Better?"

He nodded. "Better."

"Good."

They came to the end of the corridor, and the Doctor's screwdriver beeped. He whirled on the spot, coming to a stop facing the wall on Trey's right.

"What?" he asked, watching as the Doctor pressed his face against the wall.

"There's something here. Behind…" He started poking it in earnest with the sonic screwdriver, pressing it against different points.

"Doctor…"

"Hmm?"

"What are we looking for?"

"I'm looking. You're watching."

"All right, fine, what are _you _looking for? The monster is right there, shouldn't we be fighting it, trying to kill it?"

The Doctor stopped and lurched towards him, eyes dark and judgemental. "It's not a monster, that thing in a tank is just a psychic projection. It's three living, breathing, thinking children that were tortured and tested and poked and prodded and then kept alive long after they should have died. They're frightened, _terrified_, and they're reacting against that. So no fighting or killing, thank you, not now, never ever. Have you got that?"

The intensity was disconcerting, and Trey found it difficult to match his gaze. Up to now the Doctor had been so light and unthreatening. Just determined. But now Trey was seeing what fuelled the Doctor, what pushed him on. It was probably what enabled him to conquer the fear that Trey was feeling right now.

"Uh…" he swallowed, eyes on the floor. "I got it."

The Doctor held his stare for a few moments more. "Good."

With that, the Time Lord returned to his work. He worked in silence while Trey re-gathered enough courage to speak to him. When he opened his mouth, the screwdriver tripped something in the wall, releasing a hatch that was perfectly concealed. It slid up, disappearing into the ceiling and sprinkling dust to the floor.

Both the Doctor and Trey moved their heads in to get a closer look at the darkened interior. Something abruptly leapt out at them. Trey backed up and watched it crash onto the Doctor, who just fell beneath it awkwardly. A thick cloud of dust billowed up at him, and Trey frantically waved it away as he knelt down.

"Doctor? Are you all right?"

The dust cleared, revealing the Doctor pinned beneath what looked like a man, but frozen in place. The body was a dull grey, blackened like ash, arms rigid by its' side.

"I'm a bit stuck, Trey," he said sulkily.

"Hold on," he grunted, grabbing on to the shoulders and rolling it over. "Feels like metal."

"That's because it is." The Doctor pushed up and helped him roll the body onto its' back, where it clanked against the floor.

The face was blank. No eyes, no mouth, only the faintest hints of a nose and empty craters where the eyes would be.

"What is it?"

"It's…"

The Doctor's face dropped, and he leapt to his feet, eyes wide with alarm. Face frozen in horror, the Doctor whirled on the spot, and then ran into the main chamber. Trey watched him go, and nervously glanced back at the grey metal thing before pursuing him. The Doctor's behaviour was so erratic, Trey barely noticed the presence of the creature.

"Doctor?"

It didn't look like he was listening to him. His eyes were on the room itself, turning on the spot as he tried to take in every detail.

"Doctor, what is it? What is that thing?"

"It's a Raston Warrior Robot."

"A what?"

"It seemed familiar," he muttered, almost inaudible. "The controls, the room, it seemed familiar, but I didn't think about it, but… I've been here, Trey. I've been in this space station, in this room."

"You have? When?"

"A long time ago. A lifetime. I was a different man, looking at it with different eyes, in a different situation…" His gaze suddenly shot to Trey, and he strode over to him unnervingly fast.

"Trey, what's the word for Doctor in your ancient language?"

"I- what?"

"WHAT'S THE WORD?" he roared, hands shaking in front of him.

"Xon, it's Xon!" he shouted defensively.

The Doctor's entire body drooped. He was at a loss for words, an indescribable sadness washing over his face as he looked back to the creature. Hand outstretched, he slowly walked over to the tank and pressed his hand to the glass, finally resting his forehead against it.

"Why? Doctor, what does that mean?"

"Trey, do you remember what I said about no fighting? No killing?"

Trey couldn't see where this was going. "Yes…?"

The Doctor straightened his back and stared up at the creature, his eyes red. "I was wrong."

Confused, Trey tried to process what the Doctor was talking about. He was on the Palace a long time ago with those warrior robot things, and for some reason the ancient Diur word for Doctor was important. What was so important about Xon?

"Doctor-"

Something beeped for their attention, and the Doctor jumped back. Looking down at his jacket, the Doctor snatched the communicator out and pressed the button.

"_Doctor?"_

Trey's heart leapt in his chest. "Ona…"

"Yes, Ona, I'm here," the Doctor said, putting a silencing finger in the air.

"_Is Trey with you?"_

He couldn't help the grin, despite everything that was happening.

The Doctor didn't share his goodwill. "Yes, he's fine. What's happening with the missiles?"

"_They…"_

"The missiles, Ona, come on!"

"_They're been launched."_

The Doctor looked at him, alarmed, and kept the eye contact as he spoke. "What?"

"_The missiles are on their way here, now."_

"How did that happen? Amy was supposed to be stopping them. And wait, 'here'? You're here?"

"_Yes, I, uh… I took the Dalek to come and warn you."_

A sudden energy surging through him, Trey snatched the communicator from the Doctor's hand.

"You could have warned us from home, Ona!"

"_Trey?"_

"What are you thinking?"

"_I needed to- you don't-"_

The communicator was suddenly out of his grasp, the Doctor's steely gaze quelling any argument Trey was about to come out with.

"Ona, you need to go back. Turn the Dalek around, and-"

"_It's too late."_

"What do you mean?"

"_I couldn't slow it down… it crashed. I'm walking towards you now, tracking your signal."_

Trey ran for the exit. "I'm going to meet her, tell her I'm coming!"

"Trey, don't-"

"Tell her, Doctor!" he shouted. There was nothing the Doctor could say that would stop him from finding Ona. He had only just realised how much she meant to him, how much he needed to tell her. No-one and nothing would get in the way of that now.

He sprinted around the corner, leaping off the ledge and hitting the muddy ground at speed. His legs struggled to get traction for a moment before he scrambled to his feet, scanning for Ona.

"Ona!"

There she was. Just on the horizon, the smallest of silhouettes against the grey sky. Thin, white streaks of light were arching through the clouds behind her, rocketing upwards. The missiles.

"Ona!"

He started running, and could see her doing the same as he got closer. Her voice was drowned out by the approaching thunder of the missiles. They reached each other as the first missile dropped in the distance, rumbling and shaking the ground. Their arms wrapped around each other like a life line, as though they would die if they let go.

"Are you all right?" he asked, breathing in her hair.

"I'm fine, I'm fine."

Another missile landed, and Trey broke the embrace, grabbing her hand and pulling her back towards the Palace. His heart sunk when he saw just how far he had run to get to Ona.

The ground shook and chunks of mud pelted down on them from the sky.

"Come on! Faster!"

Everything went white. Trey was suddenly flying through the air, tossed like leaves in the wind. He landed at an angle on the muddy ground. Bones might have been broken, he wasn't sure; his whole body was on fire, burned by the explosion. That combined with the shock of both impacts made it difficult for him to feel much of anything.

Except fear - the fear that Ona was dead. Lying on his front, Trey struggled to even bring his head up.

"Ona," he managed, voice hoarse.

A soft hand wrapped around his, and he was slowly turned onto his back. Even with the mud and blood staining her clothes and skin, she was beautiful.

"Like an angel…"

She ran her hand down his face, and he closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so, sorry. I knew how you felt, and I felt the same, but… I was too worried. I was too afraid of what others would think. But you're kind and noble and strong…"

"Ona, please… go…"

"I can't just leave you here."

"Ona… I'm dying."

"Trey, you're-"

"And I don't want you to die because of me. Please," he coughed, blood dribbling from his mouth. "Go…"

The tears were streaming down her face now, dripping onto his hand as he reached up to touch her.

"Like an angel."

All strength left him, and his arm collapsed. His eyelids felt so heavy. He needed to rest, to just… relax into the darkness. It was strange. He knew what was coming… but he wasn't afraid.

Trey focused on Ona as his eyes closed. He wasn't afraid - he had an angel to guide him.

* * *

When she had been dragged into the room, Amy had had no idea what a mind probe would be like. Over the course of travelling with the Doctor, she had been strapped to her fair share of examination tables and chairs and torture devices. Only a few of them had actually been used on her, but between the voting booth of the Starship UK and the Silurian examination table, she was sure she had a pretty good idea of how unpleasant these things could be.

Not so.

Having memories ripped from your mind and projected onto a screen, was, as it happened, incredibly painful. Not only that, but they were pulled out at a speed that made it impossible for her to orient herself, to make sense of anything that was happening. And if that weren't bad enough, any emotions she had been feeling at the time were also brought back for her to experience. She had gone from joy to loneliness to… ahem, somewhat promiscuous to terrified.

And then there was this sadness, an awful, horrible ache that made her whole body hurt. But she didn't know why. Neither did the people running the machine; they seemed as concerned, if not more, than she.

Either way, she was grateful when the mind probe was deactivated, their interrogation over, or at least paused. She was exhausted and fading in and out of consciousness, so they had seen little risk in leaving her by herself while they reported to their superiors.

When they had gone, Amy had known she should move. She had tried. But the strength just wasn't there, physically and emotionally.

And then two people had burst in, their energy and speed frightening her a little bit in her groggy state. A familiar blond, blue eyed face appeared in front of her, frantically looking for signs of life.

"Amy? Amy, are you all right?"

She moaned.

"Amy?" Mas followed up the question with a light slap, which _did _wake her up.

"All right," she mumbled, "no need to slap me, God…"

Mas grinned, and lifted her up with the help of an older man. He looked tired, whoever he was.

"Who're you?" she slurred, struggling to keep her eyes open as they took an arm each over their shoulders and almost carried her out of the room.

"Shorn," he grunted simply.

"Oh, right. Hi Shorn…" Amy looked to Mas, then back to Shorn, frowning. "Why're you helping me, then?"

"You're real. You're the only thing that matters now."

She smiled. "Too right. 'The only thing that matters,' that's me."

They were at a lift, and the doors slid open right on cue. As they heaved her inside, she looked at Mas.

"What's happening with the missiles?"

"Uh…" He pressed a button, and they went down. "They've already fired."

"What?" she shouted. At least, she thought she shouted. The state she was in at the moment, her raised voice was probably more enthusiastic slurring.

"The first strike, anyway. They're going to keep on firing until they've destroyed everything."

"Well, we've got to stop them, then," she announced, pushing down on their shoulders so she could stand. Her legs immediately gave out beneath her, and they grabbed her again.

"No, we're getting you somewhere safe until the Doctor gets back."

"How's he going to do that when he's been blown up?"

"Look, it… it's just safer here."

"Oh, man up and help me stop the missiles," she muttered, then looked over to Shorn. "You're in, right?"

Shorn nodded, determined. "Yes, I'll help you. But we need to get to the military control centre."

Mas was shaking his head as the lift reached ground floor. "This is crazy."

Feeling like she was drunk but with none of the happy benefits, Amy swirled a disciplinarian finger in the air. "Now, I never said it wasn't crazy, did I?"

He still didn't look convinced.

Amy sighed. "Mas, are you going to help, or not?"

Avoiding eye contact, Mas eventually nodded.

"Ah, good boy!" she enthused, shoving him playfully in the arm, though the motion nearly sent her crashing to the ground. Mas snatched her up before she hit the floor, and they moved her as stealthily as they could manage to a back exit.

"You'll see," she continued. "It'll be great fun."

For some reason, neither of them looked convinced.

* * *

(A/N: Hey, don't forget to review!)


	9. The Switch

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Eight: The Switch**_

The Doctor worked almost too feverishly on the Raston Warrior Robot. It had been some time since it had been active; the metal was brittle to the touch, so much so that he had had little difficulty in removing the head. With some help from the sonic screwdriver, obviously, it was still an indestructible killing machine, after all.

He just tried not to think about Trey and Ona, or about those ominous rumbles that had rocked the station earlier. The Doctor had briefly considered going with Trey, but he knew that there would be nothing he could do out there. But there was plenty he could do in here, working to find out just what was going on.

The creature was silent behind him, like it was watching him work. He had managed - not without considerable effort, mind - to drag the Raston Warrior Robot into the main chamber so he would have more light to work with. He had severed the head and was now trying to find the power cells, which was difficult with all the wiring that trailed into the body. And he couldn't cut any of them in case they were vital - it was his first time cutting open a Raston Warrior Robot, after all.

"Ah!" he announced with a smile. The power cell. He pressed the sonic screwdriver against it, giving it a charge. A clang echoed from the entrance to the Palace, and the Doctor looked up, forgetting his work for the moment. He delicately put the robot head down and quietly stood up, leaving the screwdriver to continue charging the head.

"Doctor?"

He sighed, relieved.

"In here, Ona," he said, walking back to the Raston. "So Trey found you before…"

The words died in his throat as he saw Ona limping in, hand clutching her heavily bleeding side. He ran over and supported her as best he could.

"The missiles," she managed weakly, her voice catching in her throat. "Trey's… he's…"

"I know, I'm sorry. Don't talk," he soothed, taking her to the side of the room opposite the creature. She whimpered as he let her go, resting her against the wall. He delicately moved her hand aside and inspected the wound.

"Doctor?" she gasped. "What is that?"

"Doesn't matter, just ignore it."

"Ignore it? It's a big monster in a tank."

"Big monsters in tanks are notorious attention seekers, you need to ignore them at an early stage or you just spoil them, now shut up, there's shrapnel in your side." He sighed, rubbing his hand on his cheek. "There's nothing I can do for you here, I'll need to-"

Something clicked and hummed behind him, and the Doctor's gaze darted over his shoulder. It was the Raston Warrior Robot.

Ona's head shot up. "Did you hear that?"

"It's something I've been working on," he explained, eyes still on the robot, "it just finished charging now."

"What, you mean… that voice?"

She firmly had his attention now, and he stared at her. "What voice?"

"There was a voice, just now."

"Really? What did it say?"

"It said…" she swallowed. "It said 'Doctor'."

"It recognises me?" he asked, before jumping to his feet and striding over to the robot. "You recognise me?"

"It remembers your… biometrical signature?" Ona said, confused by the terminology.

"Really? It's changed a bit since you last saw me. Maybe you just recognise me as a Time Lord. But yes, it's me, the Doctor. Ona," he said, keeping his eyes on the robot, "I'll get you help as soon as possible, but first I need to find out as much as I can from this thing. And for whatever reason, it can only communicate with you, so I need you to be the interpreter."

She nodded almost instantly, her brave face making the Doctor regret this course of action.

"All right…" he said slowly, squatting down beside the Raston and addressing its head. "What happened? For that matter, what's happen_ing_ now?"

There was a long pause, and the Doctor wondered for a moment if the power cell had died already. But then he saw Ona's face, saw her processing and taking in whatever it was the robot was communicating.

"It's not just using words… there are images, sounds…"

He nodded. "It's how they report on their activity - they download all of their knowledge and transmit it to every other Raston Warrior Robot. It's why they're - why they _were_ - some of the most feared beings in the universe."

"If they download to other robots… then why can I hear it?"

Stumped but not wanting to show it, the Doctor sighed. "I don't know. What's it saying?"

"After you left them…" she frowned. "But that's not you."

"Look, trust me, I know what you're seeing, and I know it's strange, but that _is _me."

She nodded, accepting it remarkably quickly. "After you left them, they scanned their home planet for signs of life. They found children that… oh God, they were almost dead. They were in so much pain, but these robot things still…"

She took a moment and closed her eyes, taking a breath before continuing.

"They brought the children on board the space station to see if their species could live again… so they would be remembered. But then… they fought over what to do, and because…"

"Because what, Ona?"

"Because this one wanted to be in charge."

The Doctor scowled down at the head, muttering, "Was it worth it?"

Ona continued. "The space station crashed into the planet below."

"What?" the Doctor snapped, fear gripping him.

"It crashed into the planet."

"No, but… that's this planet. Your planet. This planet is… _was_ the Raston home world…" He leapt to his feet and started pacing. "What else, Ona? What happened next?"

"The, uh… the last Raston continued with the experiments. Radiation focused on the-"

"Focused on the brain, yes, I know about that. Why? What was the point? What did you gain?" he asked, staring down at the Raston head.

"They… the children… the radiation did something… gave them psychic abilities, telekinesis… they could warp reality… they could _create _reality."

The Doctor had stopped his pacing as Ona spoke, and by the time she was finished, he was staring at her, his hearts sinking. With a low hum, the last Raston Warrior Robot died, fading away.

"It's gone," Ona whispered, distractedly glancing from the robot to the Doctor before asking, "What does that mean, Doctor? They could create reality, what was it talking about?"

"It's happening again," he muttered, his voice thick.

"What is?" She was becoming frightened now, approaching hysterical. "Doctor, what is going on?"

"These… children. They have the power to create reality with their minds. The Raston Warrior Robot thought it would be the best way to recreate his species; using the minds of the last organic Rastons to create the new generation."

"Doctor…"

"Ona, I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I truly am. You were created from their minds. Your entire civilisation, the Nocs, the Diurs, all of it. You're not real."

* * *

Amy was feeling much better now, she had to say. There was still the occasional wave of dizziness that sent her grabbing the wall for support, but other than that, everything was peachy. So she was fine to act as a lookout while Shorn did… whatever he was doing in the abandoned storeroom.

Mas didn't seem to think she was up to the job, however, and was stood on the other side of the doorway, eyes on the opposite end of the corridor.

She wasn't really sure what the plan was. Shorn had collected hardware on the fly as they entered the military control building through the maintenance doors, using his old access codes - being an ex-security director had its benefits, she supposed. They were in the basement at the moment, though what could possibly be gained from here, she had no idea.

"Hey," she said slowly, closing her eyes in the hope it would help her think with a bit more clarity. "Isn't Shorn one of the survivors of the Noc expedition?"

"Yeah, that's him. He was locked up."

"He was? Why?"

Mas shrugged. "Ona knew, though. I'm guessing it had something to do with what she and the Doctor were doing here earlier."

Sighing, she shook her head. "He does tend to get people in trouble, that boy…" She frowned. "Hold on, he was locked up? So how did you get him out?"

With a smile that was eerily similar to the Doctor's 'I'm rather pleased with this handy doo-dad I just invented', Mas pulled one of the disc shaped teleporter devices from his pocket.

"I'm kind of an expert with these things. I can even create a chain of transmat jumps - lets you travel much further than just using one of them."

"Like what the Doctor did when we were in the prison?"

"Not… exactly. He told me that was time travel. My way is a bit more bulky and complicated; you need about ten transmat devices to make it work properly. But it's the same result, I suppose; it bounces you much further than just a single transmat device could."

"Oh," she said blankly. "Right."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Okay."

"Ona and I… we overheard some of the interrogation…"

"Right…"

"And… I was just curious…"

"…about?"

"The Doctor has a wife?"

A little surprised at first, Amy finally managed a laugh. "Oh, _that_. Yeah, a woman called River Song. He won't admit it, but she's _so _his wife."

"He won't admit it?"

"It's a… complicated relationship."

Shorn rushed breathlessly out of the storage room. "It's done. We need to leave, now."

They started running, Shorn leading the way. Amy stumbled a few times as she ran, but mostly managed to keep up.

"Why, what's going to happen?" she asked, looking back at the room when she had the chance.

"Those tremors from before were caused by massive creatures moving beneath the surface; they're attracted by certain sonic frequencies. I've put a transmitter at the base of the building that will summon them, and they'll demolish it."

Amy stopped, but Shorn and Mas kept on going. "They'll what? What about the people?"

"It doesn't matter," Shorn said simply over his shoulder.

Mas looked back to Amy unsurely, and finally came to a halt himself. When he noticed neither of them were with him, Shorn turned.

"They don't matter. None of them do. Only you matter," he said, looking straight at her.

"What?" she scoffed. "Why?"

"Because you're real."

More than a little weirded out, Amy exchanged a worried look with Mas. "Yeah… well, anyway, I'm not too keen on letting all these people die."

Looking desperate now, Shorn rushed over to her, grabbing her wrists pleadingly. "You can't. Please. You're important, you're the only thing that's important. You can't die. Those things will be here in a matter of minutes."

As though to emphasise his point, the ground began to rumble ominously. The echoing sound of doors slamming emerged from down the corridor.

"They've tracked the sonic transmitter," Shorn muttered. "You have to go, they'll kill you!"

"Why?" Amy snapped, snatching her arms out of his grip. "What's so important about me?"

"You're real!"

"What, and everyone else isn't?"

"No!"

The guards were upon them now, and in the middle of the group was Mas' father, staring in horror at his son.

"Mas?"

The young man avoided his father's gaze. "Father, I-"

"What are you doing? You're here with Shorn and… this human _thing?"_

Shorn put himself between Amy and the guards while Mas struggled for his answer.

"Stay away, Shriner," he growled.

Amy put her hand up. "Um… maybe we could talk about this some other time, _after _we've evacuated the building, yeah?"

Two guards emerged from the room Shorn had set the transmitter in, the one on the left shaking his head.

"He's locked the controls, sir."

Furious, Shriner glared at Shorn. "Stop this, now."

"No."

"You're going to kill-"

"Nobody, Shriner! Nobody will die when this building collapses, because none of it is real. You would know that, if you hadn't failed us at the Palace!"

Everyone was silent for a moment, the distant rumbling building with every passing moment. In a reversal, Mas was now staring at Shriner while he struggled to match his son's gaze.

"Father? What does he mean?"

"He's insane, Mas, ignore him. I can't believe you're here with him in the first place!"

"He had courage, Shriner," Shorn said. "More than you when we opened the Palace."

Emboldened by the power of his words, Shorn looked to Mas. "We were attacked as soon as we cut it open. Pain in our heads, so severe. Most of us died, except three. Two of us struggled inside to find the source. One of us ran in fear."

At this point Shriner looked too despondent to say much of anything, and Shorn continued.

"There were three of them in orbs of light. Three children. We managed to kill two of them before the third…" His voice wavered, and he had to take a moment before he spoke again. "The third put ideas in our minds. Images, thoughts… the truth. The truth about us, about the Nocs and Diurs. And we left."

No-one seemed inclined to ask the obvious, so Amy threw in, "And the truth is…?"

"We're not real. We're the product of three children's imaginations. All of us. Everyone on this planet does not exist." He whirled on the spot to face Amy, intense brown eyes boring into hers. "Except for you, and your friend. You're real. That's why you _need_ to survive. We're nothing."

A resounding bang filled the air, and Shorn's face dropped, his eyes wide. He collapsed onto Amy, who struggled to hold his weight, awkwardly dropping him to the floor. There was blood splattered on her front, but she barely registered it as she looked into Shorn's eyes and saw the light behind them wink out.

The rumbling was shaking the room now. Thin lines of dust wafted down from above, and cracks were beginning to show in the ground beneath them.

Looking up, she saw Shriner holding the smoking gun, as horrified with his own actions as Amy was. The weapon clattered to the floor, and Shriner looked helplessly to his son.

"Mas…"

Mouth clamped shut, Mas furiously shook his head and grabbed Amy's arm with one hand and pulled out a transmat with the other.

"Mas!"

Everything went white, and Amy's view of Shorn's body was replaced by blank concrete. Blinking stars away, she looked around the empty street, the sudden silence jarring.

"Where are we?"

"Far away from that building," Mas said, rifling around in his pockets and pulling out transmat devices from everywhere.

A low rumble thundered through the street, and a cloud of dust billowed out from somewhere deep within the city. Amy could make out the faint outline of the black slug thing that the Doctor had described, writhing its head about in the sky.

"You let them die," she said faintly, knowing her eyes were stinging with tears and not caring.

"It doesn't matter, Amy," Mas hissed back, latching the transmats onto his belt as he spoke. "What Shorn said… it was right, don't you see? Everyone who heard him say it… they _knew_. On some level, we all know. My mother died when I was six. Was she ever alive? Was my father?" He stopped working and gazed at the floor. "Am I real?"

"You saved my life. That's real, isn't it?"

He didn't reply, and just got back to work. She watched him clip on the last transmat and check they were all in place before she got to her feet.

"Where are you going?"

"To find my sister. My father may have failed us, but I love my sister, and she loves me. That has to be real. I've got to believe that. You can't imagine family." He took a breath and smiled at her, sad but determined. "Goodbye, Amy."

"No, wait-!" She lunged for him as he pressed the button, but he was gone in a flash of light.

Amy stared at the spot Mas had once occupied, and spotted, on the horizon, a collection of thin white streaks firing up into the sky.

"Missiles…"

They must have fired before the building went down. And there was that dizziness again. Amy rubbed her hands frantically through her hair while she tried to think. No-one would help her, and she wouldn't be able to get to Noc territory ahead of the missiles to warn the Doctor.

But she was sure as hell going to try. Turning towards the Noc territory, Amy started running as fast as her shaky legs could take her.

She had to make sure the Doctor was okay. He was all she had.

* * *

The Doctor stared at the creature in front of him, desperately wanting to see its' natural form, to see what the Rastons had done, if only so he could see if there was any way to fix it.

"Doctor, what do you mean I'm not real?" Ona whispered, clearly questioning the sanity of the enquiry even as she said it.

"I _mean_, this creature, it… imagined you. Your entire civilisation. Three children with massive telekinetic and psychic abilities, giving them the ability to shape any reality they wanted. That's where the Daleks and the Ood and this blue mist creature came from. Using their fears and making them manifest to try and frighten us away."

"What do you mean?"

He turned on the spot and walked over to her, slipping down against the wall to squat beside her. "A long time ago, there were humans here, in this space station, and the Rastons took their memories and kept them on these computers. That's what provided the children with the information they needed. Not just to create a civilisation, but a society. But the computers degraded over time. The information became corrupted, files went missing… you knew a giraffe, but not chocolate cake."

"So we're… built from human memories?"

"And some of the Raston Warrior Robot's experiences as well, I suppose. That's probably where the sonic technology came from."

Ona was grasping for answers now, for anything that would disprove him. "But… what about the different territories? The Nocs and the Diurs? Why bother?"

"I don't know," the Doctor replied thoughtfully, staring at the children. "There are disputes and wars all through humanity's history, maybe it's taken from that."

"No."

"What?"

"I said no. I'm real. I remember my life. When I was thirteen I fell and broke my arm. Why would I have those kinds of details in my life?"

"The mind is a magnificent thing, Ona. Most forms of life in the universe only use a fraction of their brain for thinking. Imagine three minds using their full potential, only to have that magnified tenfold. Combine that with the imagination of a child, and… anything's possible."

Ona looked at him with what could only be described as disdain. "You sound pleased by this."

"It's amazing," he marvelled. "Don't you think? Because you _are _real, Ona, that's the magnificence of it. You have a life, Mas has a life, your father has a life, his father had a life… all of you, living, breathing, striving, failing, loving, hating, fighting, laughing _people._ Just because you know where you're from, doesn't make you any less real."

"But I'm not from that!" she shouted, suddenly heaving herself to her feet. She cried out in pain and anguish as she stumbled toward the children. "I don't believe it! I'm not some imaginary thing! Trey died, and it hurts more than anything! Don't tell me that's imaginary!"

The Doctor ran up beside her, though he didn't try to stop her.

"_You will stop,"_ the voice said, though it had less conviction now.

"No, _you _will stop!" Ona screamed, her rage forcing her through the pain and tears. "You will stop hiding and show me what you really are!"

The Doctor stared with his mouth slightly open, waiting for something to happen in the silence that followed. And then, suddenly, like it had never been there at all, the creature in the tank blinked out of existence.

There were three children, naked and thin and grey. The eyes were sealed shut, the mouth hanging open. And two of them were dead.

"They're…" Ona spoke breathlessly, her voice barely making a noise. "They're children. They're really children. They… oh, God…" her hand went up to her mouth as more tears came. "…they're so young…"

Kneeling down, the Doctor nodded. "No more than five years old."

The two children were lying on black pedestals, framing the only surviving child who hovered between them in an orb of green energy.

"That's why the cities have been disappearing. Your civilisation was created by three children, and now there's only one trying to sustain everything. Its' mind is fractured. The Nocs, the Diurs… they represent the good and bad impulses of the brain. Light and dark. Diurnal and Nocturnal."

There was a readout at the base of the pedestal, and the Doctor glanced at it, though he already knew what he would find.

"Such a strain… it's killing it."

"It's dying?"

The Doctor nodded. "And in so much pain. That's what my psychic paper picked up, what's giving me a headache… it's screaming. Dying, and so afraid." And then he had one of those moments where different thoughts came together and crystallised in his head, though there was no thrill to it today.

"But not for itself… oh, it's afraid for you, for the people of this planet. Because when it dies… you die. Its' mind is failing, that's why your people are becoming more and more afraid as time goes on. And as it becomes weaker and weaker, your people will become worse. They'll be driven insane with fear. Irrational, uncontrollable, primal fear."

Something thundered in the distance, and the Doctor whirled around. "Missiles. If those hit the ship…"

"But they're not real, not of it is!"

"Tell that to the shrapnel in your side," he shot back. "Everything these children have created is real, and those missiles could definitely kill them. And even if they're not killed instantly, the death will be even more painful, the mind even more erratic as it fades away… and your people disappear screaming."

"What are you going to do?"

"I…" He walked past Ona and to the terminal, working the sonic screwdriver. His voice wouldn't extend past his lips. "I have to… I'm going to send a charge through the stasis pod. Kill the child instantly. Painlessly."

She rushed over, standing beside him. "But… my people will disappear."

"I know."

"But you said we were real, that-"

"I KNOW!" The Doctor looked into her raw, red eyes, tears pricking his vision. "It's one or the other, Ona. I have to choose between letting that child live on in hideous pain and eventually die a slow, terrified death, all the while passing that fear on to every man, woman and child on the planet… or I give it a quick death and wipe out an entire civilisation."

Another rumble, this one much closer. The terminal beeped.

"It's ready," he whispered. "It's ready, it's ready, it's ready, just do it," he chanted, pressing his head against the screen. "All I need to do is press this button and it's done. Just one push."

The Doctor looked at Ona, staring into her eyes. "This is what he was talking about. I met someone, Ona. Someone who told me I was going to do something terrible today. An entire civilisation, just blinking out of existence. All because of me. Do I have the right to do this? There was a time when I thought I did, and I ended up dead because of it…"

She stared right back, silent. Then she moved, limping over to the child. "Can it understand me?"

With a considerable effort, the Doctor pushed off from the wall and walked over.

"I don't know. You're a part of it. It might respond to you more than me."

Ona nodded, and looked up at the child, staring at its closed eyes. "Show me your pain."

The Doctor put a hand on her arm. "Ona-"

"I need to know," she said gently, shrugging his hand away. "Show me."

It did.

Ona screamed, collapsing to her knees. The Doctor knelt down beside her, though it was a futile gesture. Her hands gripped her head as she rolled into a ball on the floor.

"Stop it," he commanded, getting to his feet and glaring down at the child. "She can't take this kind of pain, you're killing her! Stop it now!"

And it did.

The screaming stopped, but she didn't move. She just stared straight ahead with blank eyes as the Doctor knelt down beside her.

"Ona?" he asked gently.

The ship rumbled again from another missile. The next one would probably hit them.

Ona blinked. "I know what to do."

"What?"

"I know how to save us, Doctor. Us, and the child."

His hearts skipped two beats. "You do? What is it?"

"It showed me. In my mind, now. Help me to the terminal."

Hope fuelling him, the Doctor lifted her to her feet and assisted her across the chamber to the terminal.

"All right," he said, a breathless smile on his face. "What do I need to do?"

"Nothing," Ona said. She turned to him and smiled, her bottom lip quivering. "You're a wonderful man, Doctor. Don't ever think that this was your fault."

She pressed the button, and there was a flash of electrical energy. The Doctor lunged for her hand to stop her.

But she was gone. The child was dead. The missiles were silent. Even the lights planted by the expedition all those years ago were gone. All that imagination. All that life… just winking out of existence.

"No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO!"

He lashed out with his leg, smashing it against the wall again and again until he was breathing heavy, his foot throbbing.

Everything gone. So much potential and happiness and joy and love and… _life_. Gone in an instant.

Shoulders suddenly feeling very heavy, the Doctor flicked on the sonic screwdriver and directed it towards the exit. There was bound to be a very confused Amy Pond where the Diur city had once been.

He stopped as he passed the child. Frowning, he moved over to the dead body and leant in close.

A breath. It was breathing.

"You're breathing," he told the child, as if it didn't know. He took some readings with the screwdriver. "How? That should have killed you… complete brain death, unless…"

One final piece of the puzzle slipped into place, compounding the Doctor's sadness.

"…unless something was keeping you alive. An anchor."

Like a man on death row, the Doctor walked out of the space station and into the open air. It looked much the same as before, except the sky was just that little bit brighter. No longer the nightmarish storm clouds that came from a child's dark emotions.

In the distance, standing in the mud and staring at him, flickering in and out of existence, was the reason the child was still alive. The reason the Doctor knew about any of this. The reason Xon had hated him so much.

The Doctor hopped down from the space station and slowly walked over to him.

"Hello, Mas."

* * *

(A/N: Even though this is a sequel/prequel to my other story 'Dominoes', I hope this chapter - and the next, come to think of it - wasn't too confusing for anyone who hasn't read that story. Hopefully I made it clear enough.

Of course, you _should _read that story and leave glowing reviews for every chapter. J

And yes, I'm aware of the similarities with the Doctor's moral conundrum in 'The Beast Below' - I'd had this planned out well before that episode aired, though, and, of course, the obvious difference here is that there isn't any convenient answer waiting to be discovered.

But anyway, enough of my blah. Reviews please!)


	10. The Two Doctors

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Chapter Nine: The Two Doctors**_

Mas' gaze, much like the rest of his body, was flickering in and out of existence, like a faulty television signal. It didn't make it any less painful to look him in the eye, however.

"Can you hear me?" The Doctor sighed. "I wish that you could. Although I'm not sure if it would make a difference at this point."

He searched Mas' eyes, looking for some kind of acknowledgement, but got nothing but hatred and rage. The Doctor looked back to the space station and then back to Mas, rubbing his fingers against his palms, hands down by his side.

"When I modified the transmat and teleported you to the city, you were exposed to temporal background radiation. Harmless. Except it made you real, at least partially. It was radiation outside of what the children were creating with their minds, something to link you to the rest of the universe. So when the child died… you lived on."

He looked off into the distance and allowed the newfound breeze to brush past his face.

"Trey and Ona would have survived too, if they were alive. But Trey was dead already and Ona was so weak… she had seen so much. She didn't have the will to push herself into the real world."

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor forced himself to look directly at Mas. "But you did. You were probably on your way to save her. To save your family. I'm guessing someone told you about the children, about what you are. Shorn, or maybe your father…? I don't know. I don't think you'll even remember all the details. Your mind is half real, half mad with fear… no wonder you're going to be vague when you see me next time."

He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and held it up next to his head.

"When I scanned the area earlier and detected you, I also picked up something else. Something underground. Those black slug things… are the only indigenous life forms left on this planet. Probably the only ones who survived the attack all those centuries ago."

The screwdriver suddenly feeling very heavy in his hand, the Doctor let his arm drop to his side. "I've got to end it, Mas. You're keeping that child alive, suffering and in pain. I'm going to transmit a signal and point it at the space station. The child will die, and you…"

He tried to hide the pity in his eyes, but knew he was making a bad job of it.

"…you, Mas… you'll be stuck. Stuck in a temporal limbo, never moving, never ageing, but aware of every passing moment. Eventually you'll free yourself, but the strain on your body and mind will be immense. Your face will change, you mind will be damaged…"

The Doctor took a breath, searching once again for any signs of life, for something… _anything _that would show that, at this present moment, Mas understood. Even if he didn't forgive him or accept it, at least he would _understand_ what was going to happen to him, and why.

"This planet. Stoarn… it used to be the Raston home world. When you escape, you'll think you're on a different planet, you'll find the Rastons… and this whole thing starts all over again. A time loop. An endless time loop."

He looked down at the sonic screwdriver, weighed it in his hand, his voice nothing but the slightest of croaks as he spoke. "Or I could leave you. I could do nothing, and walk away. I've earned that, haven't I? The right to walk away? Just once. Only once, and never again."

Mas stared at him. Seethed, raged. A cold wind blew past the Doctor, his jacket and hair fluttering in the breeze.

The Doctor sighed. "But that child would die suffering, and the part of your mind that is connected to it would become even more damaged. The events I remember could change for the worse."

He lifted the sonic screwdriver and found the frequency he had used when he had been with Ona in the city.

"I wish you could remember this, Mas. And I hope that, despite everything I know, that this is one of those occasions when time _can_ be rewritten, that you'll remember… you'll remember that I'm sorry. I am so profoundly sorry."

As futile as it was, he waited a moment for the reply. He didn't get one.

"Goodbye, Mas."

He turned and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the space station. He switched it on. Nothing happened for a moment. But then he heard a distant rumbling, gathering in strength as it drew ever closer, until he found it difficult to stand.

And then the space station exploded from the inside out, one of the black slug creatures erupting directly through the centre. Keeping the screwdriver on, the Doctor saw another creature, then another, then another. He waited patiently, painfully, as they ripped the station to pieces, crushing and pulping anything living that was inside. Then, when there was nothing left, the Doctor switched off the screwdriver, arching his head back around to look at Mas.

Mas, who had once seemed so bright and full of energy and life with a mischievous glint in his eye that the Doctor couldn't help but empathise with… now so full of rage and anger and grief. And insanity.

He roared silently at the Doctor as he disappeared, crying out at the sheer agony of it all. And for the first time, in those final moments, he looked like the man the Doctor had met a lifetime ago.

The man called Xon.

* * *

The Doctor found Amy sitting under a tree, looking bored and sad at the same time, blank stare stretching out to the horizon. She was facing away from him, and didn't notice as he walked up and leant against the tree.

"All right, Pond?"

She leapt about ten feet into the air before whirling around on the spot, hands up in some attempt at what he supposed were martial arts.

"You're alive," she breathed, attacking him with a hug which he gratefully returned. Then she broke it off, glaring at him. "No, wait, hang on, get off! You're alive!"

"Yes."

"What about the missiles?"

"Funny thing about imaginary missiles. They don't tend to have much of an impact."

She threw a sideways look at him. "So they _were _imaginary."

"Depends what you mean by 'they'. If you mean the missiles, then yes. If you mean the people… also yes."

"So… Trey, Ona, Mas. None of them were real?"

The Doctor took a breath that he hoped wasn't too obviously pained and smiled. "No, none of them. The city, the people, the Nocs, the Diurs… all of it from the imagination of three children, believe it or not."

"Yeah, heard about that…"

"You did?"

She nodded, moving back to the tree and sliding down to the ground, her back resting against it. "Yeah, Shorn said the expedition found three children and killed two of them, and the third one told them the truth. That's why Trey's dad killed himself."

The Doctor joined her at the tree, sitting at an angle from her with his back against it. "And why Shorn was so unstable… what about Mas' father? He was part of the expedition too, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, but he ran away before they went inside. Afraid."

"Afraid…" He sighed. "Fear. All of this because of fear. Fear of being forgotten, fear of dying, fear of losing your family… that's why there was an energy sphere around the planet, why aliens were forbidden, especially humans. Humanity was the basis of their civilisation, and if anyone clued them in on that, they would start to think about what they really were."

"So if they were afraid… they _were _real…" Her voice thickened ever so slightly. "I had Shorn's blood on my shirt, and it's gone now… all those people…"

The Doctor took a moment before replying. "No. They weren't real. Just an illusion of reality. They weren't real people. No need to mourn them anymore than you would characters from a book."

To that, Amy sighed, "I cried when Dumbledore died."

"Yes, well," he mumbled, clearing his throat. "I wouldn't know anything about that, I'm a Time Lord, I'm beyond such things."

An amiable silence hung between them as they looked out at the murky landscape, which was pretty much the same across the entire planet; not the bright shining sun of the Diur city, nor the ominous deep grey of the Noc territory. Just… grey and dull. Not at all different from what he remembered of Leadworth.

"So, fear, yeah?" Amy pondered.

"Sorry?"

"All of this was because of fear?"

"Indirectly, but yes."

"So…" Amy shifted around so she was looking at him, and he turned his head to face her. She had this worryingly sneaky smile. "What are you afraid of?"

He smirked. "Aside from you?"

"Well, obviously. What scares the great Doctor? What keeps you up at night?"

The Doctor looked out into the distance, back in the direction he had walked from. Towards the Raston space station, the Palace.

"The future."

"What, really?"

"Really, really."

"But you're a Time Lord."

"Yeah."

"With a time machine."

"Also yeah."

"But you know the future. You always know what's going to happen."

"No-one ever knows the future, Amy. Even what you consider the past is the future to me. Always mutable, shifting, changing. The outcome always uncertain, even when I think it isn't. Time can be rewritten, unwritten, self-written, co-authored, edited, printed, dated, sold, read, reviewed, critiqued, and then you end up berating yourself because you're meant to be a hard Time Lord in a leather jacket and you're crying because some fictional wizard died-"

He promptly clamped his mouth shut, and Amy laughed.

"I knew it!"

He sighed. "Yeah, got a bit carried away with the writing metaphor there…"

Her smile faded a little, and she looked back out to horizon. "Still… good to know even you can be surprised."

Slowly, sadly, the Doctor nodded. "Yeah…"

Xon had surprised him. But then, before he had even met Xon the Doctor had worried endlessly about the future, about what he would become. He had been haunted through two lives by how the war had changed the Time Lords, corrupted them, made them believe they were beyond reproach, and if he would ever become the same.

Regeneration was unstable, unpredictable, uncontrollable. Through all of his regenerations, he had never known what he would be like after the change. The only comparison he could think of that humans could understand was someone who had suffered a severe head injury, or a stroke. He was still the same person, and yet so much changed. A death for the unique individual that came before.

And he was never sure if his better instincts would survive. What if he became something closer to the Valeyard? The Time Lords had called him an amalgamation of his _dark _impulses, but… what was to stop the regeneration process from doing something to his mind, changing him for the worse?

And after Bowie Base One, a Time Lord Victorious… he had realised he was wandering down that dark path _before _his regeneration, which had multiplied his worries tenfold. If he was acting in such a way _before _the process scrambled his brain, what would happen when he regenerated, _if _he regenerated?

But he remembered it. The death, the rebirth. One moment he was one Doctor, the next moment he was another. It all flowed in that painful, jolting way that regeneration did. He remembered his sadness, his final words with that face… and then, suddenly, his muscles were shaking, his brain was on fire, unable to concentrate on anything… but there was that delirious, frantic happiness. He was alive, he had legs, arms, hands, fingers, _lots_ of fingers… all of it made him happy. He was still _him_, but he felt new again, felt ready for more, for a fresh start.

And he really liked who he was now. Cool bowtie, 'Geronimo', fish fingers and custard… what was there not to love, honestly?

All of those terrifying thoughts Xon had recognised in his head; those niggling doubts about himself that had been festering since he had seen the corruption of the Time Lords during the war… they were still there. But he was more aware now. He was learning from his mistakes. He needed someone, and more importantly, he _knew _that he needed someone. Someone who would stand up to him, tell him he was wrong, would puncture his (only very super-occasionally) pompous 'Last of the Time Lords' attitude.

A smile crept across his face as he looked at Amy, a smile on her lips and that sparkle in her eyes that always made him laugh.

And yeah, someone to make him laugh. That was important.

Whatever his face, whatever his personality, he was still the Doctor. He just needed a second opinion now and then.

"TARDIS?" Amy asked.

The Doctor laughed, giving her a delighted slap on the thigh. "TARDIS."

The Doctor, and his companion, in the TARDIS. Next stop everywhere.


	11. Epilogue

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**Itself**_

_**Epilogue**_

He went forwards and backwards.

Up and down.

He didn't move. He never moved. Still the same streaks of light around him. He could draw all of it with his eyes closed. If he could move his hands.

Hands, plans, clans.

His clan was gone now.

But they were still here, lingering. Taunting. He hated them. He loved them.

He hated hating them because he loved them.

All because of _him._

It was the pity that made it worse.

Worse, hearse, curse.

A curse that _he _had put on him with nothing but an apology. The pity in those dead eyes… it was enough to drive him mad.

Mad, bad, sad.

It was the sadness that had him now. It would be the anger again, soon. These things had rhythms. They tended to loop back on themselves.

The irony.

He went forwards and backwards.

Up and down.

He moved.

* * *

(A/N: Continued in my other story, _Dominoes_, which, in turn, continues in this story. So if you really wanted to, you could read the two stories on a continuous loop. And leave a glowing review on every chapter as you go, that'd be good. J

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story; it's been stewing since I watched 'Planet of the Dead' last year. Took a lot of working out; I suddenly had a much greater appreciation of how much thinking Steven Moffat must put into wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Unless it comes easily to him, in which case I hate him.

In any case, thanks for reading, and a special thanks to those who have reviewed - it's always, truly, really really really appreciated!)


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